A automotive belonging to one among Italy’s main investigative journalists exploded exterior his residence in a single day, prompting an investigation by Italy’s anti-mafia authorities and condemnation Friday from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and others. Nobody was injured.
The explosion late Thursday focusing on Sigfrido Ranucci, lead anchor of state-run RAI3’s Report investigative collection, occurred on the eighth anniversary of the automotive bomb slaying of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
“The power of the explosion was so robust that it may have killed anybody passing by at that second,” Report mentioned in a press release on X.
Ranucci had simply returned residence on the time, and his daughter had walked by a half-hour earlier than, Report mentioned in a press release. The blast destroyed the automotive, broken one other household automotive subsequent to it, in addition to the entrance gate of Ranucci’s residence in Pomezia, south of Rome.
Police, firefighters and forensic crews reported to the scene, and magistrates from the Rome district of the anti-Mafia police have been investigating, Report mentioned. Video shot by Ranucci, who has been below police safety since 2021 due to his hard-hitting investigations, confirmed the mangled stays of the automobiles and the gate.
This picture launched by investigative journalist Sigfrido Ranucci reveals his destroyed automotive, left, exterior his residence after an explosive gadget detonated beneath it, in Pomezia, close to Rome, Italy, on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025.
Sigfrido Ranucci / AP
Meloni expressed her solidarity with Ranucci and condemned what she known as “the intense act of intimidation he has suffered.”
“Freedom and independence of knowledge are important values of our democracies, which we are going to proceed to defend,” she mentioned in a press release posted on social media.
In feedback to journalists exterior the workplaces of RAI, Ranucci mentioned the explosion was an “escalation” of what he mentioned have been two years of threats that he believed have been associated to Report’s investigations into the hyperlinks between the Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta and far-right crime teams and notable previous Mafia hits.
Requested if the explosion would have a chilling impact on Report’s work, he mentioned his colleagues have been used to working below troublesome circumstances.
“Whoever thinks they will situation the work of Report by doing one thing like it will get the alternative impact,” he mentioned. “The one factor this does is perhaps makes us waste a while.”
Italian journalist unions, politicians and others additionally expressed solidarity.
Report is without doubt one of the few investigative packages on Italian tv and often breaks information involving outstanding Italian politicians, enterprise leaders and public figures. Ranucci has been sued a number of instances for defamation and, simply this week, was absolved within the newest case he had confronted.
The blast occurred on the eighth anniversary of the Oct. 16, 2017 homicide of Daphne Caruana Galizia, who wrote extensively about suspected corruption in political and enterprise circles in Malta. Like Ranucci, she had confronted dozens of libel fits meant to silence her reporting. Two males have been sentenced to life in jail earlier this 12 months after being convicted of complicity within the homicide. Two different individuals pleaded responsible in 2022 to finishing up the homicide and have been sentenced to 40 years in jail.
“Order to kill you”
Report is understood for its in-depth investigative reviews and Ranucci has additionally written a ebook on the mafia.
In a 2021 tv program, he described how a former prisoner instructed him that mobsters “had given the order to kill you” after his ebook was printed, however the hit “was stopped.”
Ranucci instructed Corriere he had additionally acquired numerous threats just lately, together with discovering two bullets exterior his home.
On Sunday, he revealed the highlights of the upcoming Report collection on social media, together with investigative reviews into the highly effective ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group in Calabria and the Sicilian Mafia.
In line with marketing campaign group Reporters With out Borders, Italy ranks forty ninth on this planet for press freedom.
Pavol Szalai, RSF’s Europe head, instructed AFP it was “essentially the most severe assault towards an Italian reporter in recent times.”
“Press freedom itself is dealing with an existential menace in Italy,” Szalai added.
The group warned in its final replace that journalists who examine organized crime and corruption are “systematically threatened and generally subjected to bodily violence.”
About 20 journalists at present dwell below everlasting police safety after being the targets of intimidation and assaults, it mentioned.
Essentially the most high-profile journalist is Roberto Saviano, greatest recognized for his worldwide mafia bestseller “Gomorrah.”
Saviano linked the assault on Ranucci to a political local weather in Italy during which journalists are seen as professional “targets.”
The Italian journalists’ federation FNSI mentioned earlier this week that 81 reporters had been victims of acts of intimidation, together with 16 instances of bodily assault, within the first half of 2025, the Reuters information company reported.
“The assault on Sigfrido Ranucci units the clock of democracy in Italy again many years,” Alessandra Costante, FNSI’s Secretary Common, mentioned in a press release Friday.