A car belonging to one of Italy’s leading investigative journalists exploded outside his home overnight, prompting an investigation by Italy’s anti-mafia authorities and condemnation Friday from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and others. No one was injured.
The explosion late Thursday targeting Sigfrido Ranucci, lead anchor of state-run RAI3’s Report investigative series, occurred on the eighth anniversary of the car bomb slaying of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
“The force of the explosion was so strong that it could have killed anyone passing by at that moment,” Report said in a statement on X.
Ranucci had just returned home at the time, and his daughter had walked by a half-hour before, Report said in a statement. The blast destroyed the car, damaged another family car next to it, as well as the front gate of Ranucci’s home 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 were investigating, Report said. Video shot by Ranucci, who has been under police protection since 2021 because of his hard-hitting investigations, showed the mangled remains of the cars and the gate.
Sigfrido Ranucci / AP
Meloni expressed her solidarity with Ranucci and condemned what she called “the serious act of intimidation he has suffered.”
“Freedom and independence of information are essential values of our democracies, which we will continue to defend,” she said in a statement posted on social media.
In comments to journalists outside the offices of RAI, Ranucci said the explosion was an “escalation” of what he said were two years of threats that he believed were related to Report’s investigations into the links between the Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta and far-right crime groups and notable past Mafia hits.
Asked if the explosion would have a chilling effect on Report’s work, he said his colleagues were used to working under difficult conditions.
“Whoever thinks they can condition the work of Report by doing something like this will get the opposite effect,” he said. “The only thing this does is maybe makes us waste some time.”
Italian journalist unions, politicians and others also expressed solidarity.
Report is one of the few investigative programs on Italian television and regularly breaks news involving prominent Italian politicians, business leaders and public figures. Ranucci has been sued multiple times for defamation and, just this week, was absolved in the latest case he had faced.
The blast occurred on the eighth anniversary of the Oct. 16, 2017 murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, who wrote extensively about suspected corruption in political and business circles in Malta. Like Ranucci, she had faced dozens of libel suits intended to silence her reporting. Two men were sentenced to life in prison earlier this year after being convicted of complicity in the murder. Two other people pleaded guilty in 2022 to carrying out the murder and were sentenced to 40 years in prison.
“Order to kill you”
Report is known for its in-depth investigative reports and Ranucci has also written a book on the mafia.
In a 2021 television program, he described how a former prisoner told him that mobsters “had given the order to kill you” after his book was published, but the hit “was stopped.”
Ranucci told Corriere he had also received various threats recently, including finding two bullets outside his house.
On Sunday, he revealed the highlights of the upcoming Report series on social media, including investigative reports into the powerful ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group in Calabria and the Sicilian Mafia.
According to campaign group Reporters Without Borders, Italy ranks 49th in the world for press freedom.
Pavol Szalai, RSF’s Europe head, told AFP it was “the most serious attack against an Italian reporter in recent years.”
“Press freedom itself is facing an existential threat in Italy,” Szalai added.
The group warned in its last update that journalists who investigate organized crime and corruption are “systematically threatened and sometimes subjected to physical violence.”
About 20 journalists currently live under permanent police protection after being the targets of intimidation and attacks, it said.
The most high-profile journalist is Roberto Saviano, best known for his international mafia bestseller “Gomorrah.”
Saviano linked the attack on Ranucci to a political climate in Italy in which journalists are seen as legitimate “targets.”
The Italian journalists’ federation FNSI said earlier this week that 81 reporters had been victims of acts of intimidation, including 16 cases of physical assault, in the first half of 2025, the Reuters news agency reported.
“The attack on Sigfrido Ranucci sets the clock of democracy in Italy back decades,” Alessandra Costante, FNSI’s Secretary General, said in a statement Friday.
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