Multiple murderer absconds from jail in Italy for fourth time

Police unions call for law change after Giuseppe Mastini again fails to return from day release

A multiple murderer has absconded for a fourth time from an Italian prison.

Giuseppe Mastini, 60, who was given a life sentence in 1989, absconded while on day release from a high-security prison in Sassari, Sardinia. Police launched a country-wide manhunt after he failed to return to the jail at midday on Sunday.

Mastini previously escaped during day release from Fossano prison in Piedmont, northern Italy, in 2017. Three years earlier he also took advantage of day release to go to a Prodigy concert in Rome.

Mastini, born in Bergamo province, terrorised Rome during the 1970s and 1980s with a range of crimes including murder, kidnapping and burglary. He was also briefly investigated for involvement in the death of the Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975, which he has denied.

He is nicknamed Johnny lo Zingaro (Johnny the Gypsy) due to his Sinti family origins.

He committed his first murder at the age of 15, killing a tram driver during a bungled robbery.

Mastini’s first prison escape during day release, granted for good behaviour, was in 1987. On that occasion he was on the run for weeks and carried out several robberies.

Police unions expressed anger over Mastini’s latest escape.

“In 2014, after being awarded a day release permit, he showed he was responsible for irregularities and in 2017 he did exactly the same thing,” Vincenzo Chianese, the president of the Polizia Equilibrio e Sicurezza union, told Italian media.

“The legislation that enables people, who should clearly not be allowed to leave prison, to do so, must absolutely be changed. Not only to prevent families of victims having to be warned every time this happens, thus renewing their pain, but also because the feeling of impunity in our country deeply undermines the credibility of the state.”