Five more arrested over fatal stabbing at Milan Certosa station, Latin Kings suspected

Five more arrests

Police from the Milan Squadra Mobile carried out a custody order on Tuesday, 10 November, against five young men suspected of killing a 22-year-old Ecuadorian man on 26 May at Milan's Certosa railway station. Three of the five are Peruvian, one is Ecuadorian and one is Italian, all aged between 19 and 23. Four were tracked down at their homes in the Milan and Monza provinces that morning. The fifth, an Italian, cannot be found, and Adnkronos reports the working assumption that he fled to Peru, where his family is from. The case is coordinated by the Milan prosecutor's office, with pm Elio Ramondini and deputy prosecutor Bruna Albertini leading it, according to AGI. Reports differ on the running total: Adnkronos counts twelve arrests, Il Messaggero and AGI put the number of people in custody at 13, and ANSA says 11 are now in prison.

The attack at the station

According to AGI's first reconstruction, the victim was with his younger brother and a friend that evening when a group of young South American men singled them out. An initial assault took place on the platform, after which the two groups moved onto the tracks, where the 22-year-old was stabbed. He died at the Fatebenefratelli hospital in Milan, and AGI reports the attackers fled on a train. Fanpage gives a fuller account in which the group surrounded him, hit him with stones and bottles, chased him along the tracks and stabbed him after he fell. An autopsy carried out at the forensic medicine institute found he had been struck at least 34 times in the legs, and one or more wounds tore the femoral artery, causing the fatal bleeding.

The judge's custody order, as ANSA reports it, calls the killing premeditated and says the group closed off escape routes before confronting the three men with bottles in hand. The gip also notes that the body was thrown into a narrow, deep gap between the railway embankment and the station's perimeter wall. Citing the suspects' marked social danger and the risk of reoffending, the judge found grounds for custody, though not the risk of flight or of evidence tampering.

Investigation and the Latin Kings

Investigators do not describe the killing as a clash between rival gangs, since the victim, his brother and their friend do not appear to belong to any organised criminal network, Adnkronos reports. The first arrests came in July and included a 20-year-old known in the music scene. Evidence has come mainly from analysis of station and nearby CCTV footage, supported by witness statements gathered over the months. The arrested men are said to belong to the Latin Kings, and Domenico Pianese, secretary general of the Coisp police union, described the group shortly after the events as one of the most widespread street criminal organisations in the world, born in the United States in the 1940s and since moved into trafficking, extortion and violence. He added:

“Violence is used as an instrument of affirmation, belonging and power.”

What comes next

Investigators are still trying to identify the remaining young people who were at the Certosa station on the evening of 26 May, Adnkronos reports. All five people arrested on Tuesday are under investigation for murder, jointly with one another. The search continues for the Italian suspect who is thought to have fled to Peru. Police seized the clothes worn on the night of the stabbing and a blank-firing pistol from the homes of the four men arrested, and the mobile phones will be examined.