The Italian justice archives the case for the death of Mario Biondo but suggests that it could have been a murder

The family of the Italian cameraman Mario Biondo, who was the husband of the Spanish presenter Raquel Sánchez Silva when he was found dead at his home in 2013, at the age of 36, has always maintained that he was murdered.

Although the first report from the Spanish investigators considered that Biondo had taken his own life involuntarily and later the autopsies classified it as a case of suicide and the matter was considered closed, the Biondos have never accepted this hypothesis and have been fighting it all these years in the Italian and Spanish courts.

Now, a judge in the Italian city of Palermo has filed the case for alleged homicide, but, for the first time, has questioned the theory of suicide and has suggested that, indeed, it could be a murder.

According to the relatives of the cameraman and his legal team,

Despite this, the judge has decided not to continue with the case, "due to procedural limitations", that is, due to the impossibility of carrying out new investigations after so much time that could help identify the possible culprits of the alleged homicide of which the Next year marks a decade.

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Raquel Sánchez Silva limits the harassment of Mario Biondo's family

The Biondos have issued a long statement in which they detail passages from the judge's filing order and in which they are pleased that justice has "accepted" for the first time the thesis that they have been defending for years.

In fact, the judge endorses the family's complaints about how the case was handled in Spain and is particularly critical of the work that the Spanish investigators carried out on the ground in their day.

“At the time of the discovery of the body, in the immediacy of the events, investigative activities should have been carried out (environmental and telephone interceptions) that were not carried out and that, given the time that had elapsed, could not be carried out by the judicial authorities. Italian”, writes magistrate Nicola Aiello.

The judge highlights in his brief some of the inconsistencies that, according to him, the case presents.

Like the "innumerable contradictions in the statements of Biondo's widow."

And he points out that, in his opinion, "the Spanish investigators should be induced to immediately establish telephone and environmental tapping to obtain all the possible useful elements to find out the truth of the facts."

In his study of the case, Aiello also dwells on one of the pieces of evidence most questioned by the numerous investigations and autopsies of Biondo that have been carried out: a hematoma on the skull that the corpse presented and that, in the opinion of the magistrate, is “incompatible with suicidal dynamics”.

Throughout the long legal battle, Italian investigators have even traveled to Spain to take statements from some witnesses.

At least three autopsies have also been carried out on the body, one in Spain and two in Italy, with the aim of clarifying the causes of death.

They have all aimed at suicide.

The second, carried out by a Palermo coroner seven months after the death, pointed out "particular deficiencies in the judicial inspection carried out by the Spanish police, in the inspection of the corpse and in the autopsy carried out by the Spanish forensic doctor."

The last one was held in 2018 in Palermo, when the Sicilian Prosecutor's Office authorized the exhumation of Biondo's body.

The judge's current brief does not mention this third study, but points out in relation to the second that it cannot be considered "reliable",

Dobbiamo move in Spain with the authority of the Competent Italian Authorities

– Santina Biondo (@SantinaBiondo) August 1, 2022

The Biondo family has thanked the work of the Italian justice system.

And, although the case has been shelved, he has celebrated "a triumph after years of very tough legal battles" by obtaining, for the first time, a decision from the magistracy that maintains that "the death of his relative should not be attributed as it was now held to a hypothesis of suicide, but to a hypothesis of homicide”.

It has also asked the Italian State to support and promote "any useful procedural initiative, through diplomatic channels, that may ultimately lead to the opening of a case file for homicide in Spain."

In addition, they demand that the "very serious omissions of the Spanish authorities" be investigated "in depth".

At the time of his death, Mario Biondo was married to the Spanish presenter Raquel Sánchez Silva.

The couple met in the recordings of the

, in 2011, where he was a camera and she was in charge of the program from Honduras.

In 2012 they said "I do" and, just over a year later, in May 2013, the Italian was found dead at the marital home.