The former wife of Maurizio Gucci took the stand in a Milan court yesterday to deny commissioning the murder of the Florentine fashion heir, while admitting that she had spoken openly of her desire to see her ex-husband dead, Philip Willan writes from Rome.
"I strongly deny it," Patrizia Reggiani said. She claimed that she had never asked her friend Pina Auriemma, a Neapolitan fortune teller, or hotel porter Ivano Savioni to find a killer for her ex-husband. Both have admitted to contacting the alleged killers of Maurizio Gucci on her behalf.
"I asked everyone, as you now know. I would have asked the man behind the delicatessen counter. It had become an obsession for me," Mrs Reggiani said. "I spoke in this hysterical way because he had done one bad thing to me after another. It was just outbursts of anger."
She said Mrs Auriemma had organised the murder on her own initiative in order to blackmail her, after learning of her obsessive desire for her ex-husband's death.
Mrs Reggiani's lengthy deposition was interrupted by an unexpected statement to the court from her former friend, who for the first time accused Mrs Reggiani's mother, Silvana Barbieri, of complicity in the crime.
"Now though, given the incorrect behaviour of Mrs Reggiani, I want to say that Mrs Silvana Barbieri knew all about it. Many years before, she and her daughter had tried to find someone to kill Maurizio Gucci but they hadn't been able to agree on the price," Mrs Auriemma said.
Mrs Reggiani said her relationship with her husband had broken down after he embarked on a series of unwise business ventures. "They used to say that we were the most beautiful couple in the world, then Maurizio disappointed me," she said. "I wanted to find the beautiful spirit I had known, but instead I came up against a wall."
According to the prosecution, Mrs Reggiani's fear that Maurizio might dilapidate the family fortune and deprive her two young daughters of their inheritance was one of the main motives for his killing.