Francesco Schiavone, born in Casal di Principe in 1954, led the Casalesi, a Camorra clan from the province of Caserta, north of Naples, from 1988 until his arrest in July 1998. He was one of the main defendants in the Spartacus trial, the proceedings brought by the Naples anti-mafia prosecutors against the clan, which ran from 1998 to 2010. The Court of Assizes of Santa Maria Capua Vetere sentenced him to life imprisonment at first instance on September 15, 2005. The Court of Assizes of Appeal in Naples confirmed the sentence on June 19, 2008, and the Court of Cassation made it final on January 15, 2010. The convictions confirmed in that last ruling were for mafia-type association, murder, extortion and other offenses.
The first-instance judgment held him responsible for twelve murders, among them that of Antonio Bardellino in Brazil in 1988. In March 2024, after twenty-six years in custody, he began a cooperation process with the Naples prosecutors. In July of that year the process was ended and he returned to the 41-bis regime, the strictest form of detention in Italian law.
Schiavone was born on March 3, 1954, in Casal di Principe, a town in the province of Caserta. He began working young as a driver for a Naples Camorra boss, and he was first arrested in 1972, at the age of 18.
In the 1980s Campania was divided by a war between the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, led by Raffaele Cutolo, and the Nuova Famiglia, an alliance of other clans. Schiavone joined the Nuova Famiglia group of Antonio Bardellino and Mario Iovine, which fought Cutolo's organization across the Caserta area. That group became the Casalesi.
Bardellino died in Brazil in 1988; the circumstances of his death remain unclear. After it, Schiavone became the undisputed head of the Casalesi. The first-instance court later held him responsible for that death, and its judgment named the clan's leadership for the first time in a court record. Francesco Bidognetti, Michele Zagaria and Antonio Iovine were sentenced to life imprisonment with him.
Under his leadership the clan moved beyond local feuds into business and politics. It acquired significant interests in illegal waste trafficking, and its reach extended to companies and public bodies in the Caserta area and beyond. The Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, the national anti-mafia police body, opened its investigation into the clan in 1993. Over the following decade the courts issued more than 300 pre-trial detention orders and seized assets worth roughly 1.3 billion euros. On August 12, 1996, assets worth about 400 billion lire were seized from ten members of the clan headed by Schiavone. On October 22 of that year, 86 restrictive measures were carried out in the province of Caserta against people accused of mafia-type association, murder and extortion, among them politicians, police officers and businessmen.
Schiavone was arrested in 1989 in Millery, near Lyon, France, where he had gone as a fugitive. The following year the Santa Maria Capua Vetere court ordered his release because the maximum time allowed for pre-trial detention had expired. In December 1990 he was arrested again in Casal di Principe. The Court of Cassation later annulled the custody order for Camorra association for insufficient evidence. In 1994 he was released once more for the same reason, and he went into hiding.
On July 11, 1998, officers of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia's operational center in Naples arrested Schiavone in Casal di Principe. The operation, led by the agency's director, involved about forty officers from the agency, the carabinieri and the police, and followed seven months of investigation. Interior Minister Giorgio Napolitano and the mayor of Naples, Antonio Bassolino, called the arrest a serious blow to the Camorra.
At the time he was accused of about a dozen murders, including that of Bardellino, and investigators said he ran a network of companies and small businesses worth hundreds of billions of lire. He was held under the 41-bis regime from 1998.
The Spartacus proceedings grew out of investigations by the Naples anti-mafia district directorate that began in the early 1990s. About 500 witnesses were heard over the course of the trial, among them about 20 former mafia members who had become state witnesses. The trial opened in Santa Maria Capua Vetere in 1998. It produced related inquiries known as Spartacus 2, Spartacus 3 and Aima. The third of these began in November 1999 and covered more than 100 murders committed in the province of Caserta in the 1980s and 1990s.
Schiavone denied everything put to him, including in an interview with the judge in the proceedings.
The court's findings on individual deaths were set out in a judgment of more than 3,500 pages, written by Raffaello Magi, a member of the panel presided over by Catello Marano. It held Schiavone responsible for twelve murders. Among them were the killing of Antonio Bardellino in 1988, a murder of four men, and killings in a feud with a rival group between 1991 and 1994.
The appeal proceedings of 2008 dealt with sixteen homicides committed between January 1988 and the end of 1991, among them that of Bardellino.
The Court of Assizes of Santa Maria Capua Vetere delivered its judgment on September 15, 2005, after seven years and two months of hearings. It convicted 91 defendants, 21 of them to life imprisonment. Schiavone received his first life sentence there, alongside Zagaria and Iovine, both of whom had been fugitives for more than ten years. After the verdict the court restored pre-trial detention for defendants sentenced to more than seven years. Only two of the defendants then at large were arrested under the new order.
The appeal was heard by the Court of Assizes of Appeal in Naples. The verdict came on June 19, 2008. Thirty-six defendants, all linked to the Casalesi, appealed the sentences of 2005. The court gave 16 of the clan's leaders life imprisonment, the same number the prosecution had requested, and sentenced 14 other defendants to terms of two to 30 years. Schiavone, Bidognetti, Iovine and Zagaria were among those given life. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni welcomed the verdict. The writer Roberto Saviano, who had lived under police protection since 2006 after publishing his account of the Camorra, attended the hearing. A judge and two journalists were threatened while the hearings went on.
The First Criminal Section of the Court of Cassation, presided over by Edoardo Fazioli, ruled on January 15, 2010, after nearly four hours of deliberation. It upheld the Naples verdict of June 2008. For the 24 defendants who had taken their case to the final court, it confirmed 16 life sentences and eight lesser sentences of between two and 30 years. Life imprisonment was confirmed for Schiavone, Bidognetti, Iovine, Zagaria and Mario Caterino. Iovine, Zagaria and Caterino were still fugitives. The offenses were mafia-type association, murder, extortion and other offenses. At a hearing on December 15, deputy prosecutor general Mario Fraticelli had asked for all the convictions to be upheld.
The ruling was Schiavone's first final conviction. Iovine and Zagaria had taken over the leadership of the clan.
Article 41-bis of Italy's penitentiary law establishes a regime meant to stop members of organized crime from directing their activities from custody. It isolates the detainee from other inmates, reduces family visits and records them, and monitors correspondence. Schiavone has been held under it since 1998. In January 2018 the Court of Cassation rejected a request by his lawyers to revoke it.
On March 29, 2024, the National Anti-Mafia Directorate confirmed that Schiavone, then 70, had decided to cooperate with the Naples prosecutors after twenty-six years in custody. The Naples prosecutors were coordinated by Nicola Gratteri.
On July 3, 2024, the Naples public prosecutor's office ended the cooperation process and revoked the protection program. The prosecutors asked the Ministry of Justice for approval, and the ministry ordered him returned to the 41-bis regime. No court has ruled on the content of his 2024 statements.
The Spartacus case passed through all three stages of Italian criminal justice, first instance before a Court of Assizes, appeal and the Court of Cassation, which is why the life sentence became final only in 2010, twelve years after the arrest.
The case is one of the largest in Italian history. The first stage alone took seven years and two months of hearings. The investigation linked the clan to drug and waste trafficking and extortion, with reach into eastern Europe. The clan's territorial war has cost an estimated 1,000 lives over thirty years.
The circumstances of Bardellino's death in Brazil in 1988 remain unclear. The first-instance judgment held Schiavone responsible for it, and the appeal covered it among sixteen homicides of 1988 to 1991.
How many deaths underlie the life sentence is also not itemized. The first-instance judgment held him responsible for twelve murders; the ruling of 2010 confirms life imprisonment on the convictions for murder and the other offenses, without a list by victim.
Schiavone denied every accusation. The 2024 cooperation process produced no ruling by any court.
March 3, 1954: Francesco Schiavone is born in Casal di Principe.
1972: First arrested, at 18.
1980s: Joins the group of Antonio Bardellino and Mario Iovine in the war against Raffaele Cutolo's organization.
1988: Bardellino dies in Brazil; Schiavone becomes head of the Casalesi.
1989: Arrested in France; released in 1990 when the pre-trial detention limit expires.
December 1990: Arrested again in Casal di Principe.
1993: The Direzione Investigativa Antimafia opens its investigation into the clan.
1994: Released again on expiry of time limits; goes into hiding.
August 12, 1996: Assets worth about 400 billion lire seized from ten members of the clan.
July 11, 1998: Arrested in Casal di Principe by the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia.
1998: The Spartacus trial opens in Santa Maria Capua Vetere.
September 15, 2005: First-instance judgment; 91 convicted, 21 to life, Schiavone among them.
June 19, 2008: The Court of Assizes of Appeal in Naples confirms 16 life sentences.
January 15, 2010: The Court of Cassation makes the life sentences final.
January 2018: Cassation rejects a request to revoke the 41-bis regime.
March 29, 2024: Confirmation that he has decided to cooperate with the Naples prosecutors.
July 3, 2024: The prosecutors end the process; he returns to the 41-bis regime.