He had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in the Assize Court of Liège in January 2004.
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COsimo Solazzo, convicted in Belgium of participating in the 1991 assassination of Minister of State André Cools, was arrested in Veglie (Lecce province, southern Italy), Business spokesman confirmed on Wednesday night Belgian foreigner, Arnaud Gaspart, as he had done earlier in the evening at the RTBF.
“We have received confirmation via our embassy in Rome that Cosimo Solazzo has been arrested by the Veglie carabinieri on the basis of the European arrest warrant issued by the Belgian judiciary,” the spokesman told Belga after that the Italian press had announced in the afternoon the arrest of the 72-year-old man, who had been sentenced to 20 years in prison before the Assize Court in Liège in January 2004.
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The septuagenarian is placed under house arrest pending the placement of an electronic bracelet, the Italian press said.
Minister of State André Cools, former president of the Socialist Party (PS), was shot dead by two Tunisian killers on the morning of July 18, 1991, around 7:25 a.m., in the Cointe district of Liège. The two killers were sentenced in Tunis in 1998 to 25 years in prison.
A leak before the trial
After a very long investigation, a first trial of assizes had been organized in Liège to try the other protagonists of this case. Twelve weeks of trial had led to the first convictions in Belgium on January 7, 2004.
Cosimo Solazzo, born August 24, 1948, had been sentenced by default to 20 years in prison at that first trial. He had fled to Italy in the summer of 2003, a few months before the trial began, without informing his lawyer, who was then considering pleading acquittal.
Cosimo Solazzo was accused by the General Prosecutor’s Office, on the basis of the killers ’statements, of having rented the garrison that had been used to house these killers. The killers attributed a major role to him, explaining that he had carried them during spotting. He had been convicted of his involvement in the events.
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