(ANSAmed) - ROME, NOV 22 - A third investigation has been
opened into the death of Marco Pantani, a cycling champion who
was found dead on February 14, 2004 in a residence in the
central coastal city of Rimini, according to local reports
confirmed to ANSA on Monday by an attorney representing the
Pantani family, Fiorenzo Alessi.
The third investigation has been opened into homicide charges
after documents sent to Rimini prosecutors by the anti-mafia
parliamentary commission.
A second investigation was shelved in 2016 after murder was
ruled out as a cause of death.
Recently, Pantani's mother Tonina Belletti was questioned by
investigators, according to sources close to the probe.
The probe was opened following, among other things,
statements made by drug pusher Fabio Miradossa to the anti-mafia
parliamentary commission in 2020, which were reported to
prosecutors.
Miradossa, who in 2005 plea-bargained for a four-year,
10-month jail term for helping provide the drugs linked to the
great climber's death, told the commission that "Marco was
killed", according to judicial documents.
"I met him five-six months before he died and he certainly
didn't look like a person who wanted to kill himself", Miradossa
told the commission.
In 2017, Italy's supreme Cassation Court said Pantani was not
murdered, rejecting a final appeal from his family.
Pantani died at the age of 34 after taking a mix of
anti-depressant drugs and cocaine, the Cassation said,
confirming previous verdicts. (ANSAmed).
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