“I was cleaning the gun and a shot went off”: this is how Giampiero Gualandi, a 63-year-old traffic policeman from Anzola dell’Emilia, province of Bologna, justified what would appear to be yet another feminicide. But the investigators are examining every possible lead, verifying the version of the man who shot, including that of the accident: after a long interrogation, however, the man was arrested for voluntary homicide, the Bologna Prosecutor’s Office has decided to also contest the futile reasons. Because rumors of a relationship between the victim, Sofia Stefani, 33 years old, also a former policeman, and Gualandi, once a commander, were circulating. A script already seen too many times.
The traffic policeman and the former commander: rumors of a relationship between the two
However, everything must be verified at the moment, including the fact that the victim, already engaged, had decided to leave him. Someone else claims that it was Gualandi, himself married, who wanted to leave Sofia. The fact is that it was from her service pistol that the shot was fired, only one it would seem, which hit the woman in the face, leaving her no escape while she was inside the municipal headquarters.
Who is Giampiero Gualandi and who was Sofia Stefani
It was just after 4pm on yesterday 16th May, in the headquarters of the inter-municipal command of the municipal police of Anzola-Sala Bolognese, in Piazza Giovanni XXIII in Anzola, what everyone calls the “Yellow House”, a stone’s throw from the town hall, only one shot was heard.
There Gualandi, who in the past had held the role of commander of the local police of the Intermunicipal Union of Lands of Water, had returned to service after the Municipality of Anzola broke away from the Union of Municipalities. And there, at work, he met that colleague who was thirty years younger than him.
Stefani worked in the Sala Bolognese office, but it wasn’t strange for colleagues to move between one location and another. However, Stefani had given up her traffic police uniform, her contract had not been renewed, she remained in service for the whole of 2023 and she liked that job, as evidenced by her social networks.
The meeting in the provincial police headquarters of Anzola
They were alone in Gualandi’s room, even though there were a few other colleagues in the command headquarters who said they hadn’t seen anything, only heard the shot. Witnesses that the carabinieri of the investigative unit and the Anzola station heard throughout the evening. Someone claims to have seen them together a few days ago and that the relationship did not seem tense. Certainly no one could have imagined such an epilogue. «I don’t know what could have happened – said the shocked municipal commander Silvia Fiorini -, the carabinieri are investigating. Stefani had been with us until the end of 2023 and she had maintained good relationships with colleagues but I don’t know why she was here at the office. You had professional relationships with Gualandi because she was a superior to her but I don’t know what kind of relationships there were between them.”
The story to the police: “The shot went off by mistake”
Gualandi did not resist when the carabinieri stopped him still inside the local police headquarters. But he immediately said that the shot from his gun was fired by mistake while he was cleaning the weapon. The entire area and the headquarters of the command were immediately cordoned off and until late in the evening the carabinieri of the investigative unit, of the Anzola station and of the scientific section of the force, with the coroner, combed through the headquarters of the local police . While the chief instructor of the brigade, assisted by his lawyer, was questioned by the prosecutor on duty Stefano Dambruoso. An interrogation that lasted until late at night: the arrest was ultimately carried out for voluntary homicide, a measure ordered by prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso who has been coordinating the investigations into what happened at the command.
The investigations that had concerned the police chief
In the past Gualandi had been investigated for defamation because he was accused of having created false profiles on Facebook from which he insulted the mayor of Anzola Giampiero Veronesi but in the end he was acquitted because it was not possible to establish whether the computer from which the comments against the former were posted citizen and the administration was in use only for him.
The Anzola community is in shock. When the news spread, many rushed to the center of the town and watched in astonishment as investigators came and went. Never has this municipality found itself dealing with a tragedy of this magnitude. A country where everyone knows each other and even more so where Gualandi was completely unknown. investigations continue to clarify every aspect of this terrible affair.
2024-05-17 13:24:43
#man #arrested #voluntary #manslaughter
