Man charged with setting off bomb in Italy

Rome Italian police on Thursday raided a fuel depot owned by a man charged with setting off a bomb at a vocational college in a still unexplained attack that killed a 16-year-old girl and shocked the nation.

The Giovanni Vantaggiato, 68, was detained on Wednesday and is said to have confessed to last month’s attack which also left five teenagers badly burned but prosecutors said they were not convinced by the motive he had provided.

“Yes it was me. I built the bomb on my own,” Vantaggiato was quoted as telling investigators after a five-hour interrogation on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Cataldo Motta on Thursday told reporters: “He said he was having economic problems but the link to an attack like this is inexplicable.”

The man reportedly told investigators that his was an act of vengeance aimed at a courtroom next to the college because of a judicial case in which he claimed to have been treated unfairly despite being a victim of fraud.

“He gave very vague reasons without any credibility. He did not really explain anything. He didn't justify himself,” Motta said at a press conference in the southern city of Brindisi where the deadly attack took place.

The prosecutor said the married father-of-two had, however, confessed to building the bomb with gas canisters and a detonator and setting it off.

Vantaggiato has been arrested on a charge of committing “a massacre with terrorist ends” even though he is believed to have acted alone, Motta said, adding that investigators believed the targets had been selected “at random”.

Motta said Vantaggiato had been identified through CCTV footage showing two cars - one registered in his name and another in his wife’s name.

One car was seen at the scene when the bomb was put in place during the night and the second was seen in the moments before and after the blast.

Chilling video footage leaked to the media shortly after the May 19 bombing showed a middle-aged man setting off the bomb with a remote control.

Local media cited investigators as saying Vantaggiato’s attack may have been a form of revenge against the director of the college linked to a dispute between the families of the two men, although the director denied this.

Initial reactions in the hours after the attack had pointed to possible involvement of the mafia or political militants and there were demonstrations in several cities against a growing climate of violence in the country.

Fears were heightened as the attack came shortly after the shooting of a nuclear energy company executive claimed by an extremist anarchist group.

The bombing revived memories of a wave of attacks by far-right and far-left militants in the 1970s and 1980s - a period known as the “Years of Lead”.