FLASH
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Cesare Casella was just 18 years old when he was kidnapped by a gang linked to the 'Ndrangheta. After 743 days in captivity, among rats, snakes and complete isolation, he managed to return to freedom.
In January 1988, Cesare Casella was an 18-year-old teenager from Pavia, living an ordinary life between school, friends and youthful passions. But one evening, just a few meters from his home, everything changed.
A car cut him off. Armed men forced him out of the vehicle, blindfolded him with tape, and put a gun to his head. Thus began one of the most famous kidnappings in Italian history.
Now 56 years old, the Italian entrepreneur has decided to tell his story in the podcast "Sottoterra. La lunga stagione dei sequestri" of the Corriere della Sera Foundation.
After the kidnapping, Casella was held for about two weeks in a garage in Buccinasco, near Milan. The kidnappers then transported him to Calabria, to the Aspromonte mountains, one of the historical strongholds of the Calabrian mafia 'Ndrangheta.
“ When I asked for yogurt to eat, they asked me: 'What is this?'. That's when I realized where I had ended up ,” Casella recalls.
In the heart of the mountains, his captors had dug a hole in the ground, covered with sheet metal, wood, and thorns to hide him. There he spent most of his captivity.
" They spoke very little Italian. They had almost zero education. They were people who lived on the run ," Casella recounts.
He was chained around his neck and ankles. The space was so small that he could barely move.
" They put a chain on my leg and one around my neck that extended outside the shelter. I couldn't stand up and I could barely sit down ," he says.
During his two years of captivity, he changed shelters three times. The last was a bunker about two meters by two meters, carved into the mountainside.
There was only wild nature around. " I lived with rats and snakes. The human body adapts to everything. The important thing is to keep the mind clear ," says Casella.
To keep himself in check, Casella created a daily routine. He exercised, read the newspapers his captors brought him, cooked for himself, and tried to maintain hygiene.
" I didn't have toothpaste. I brushed my teeth with kitchen soap. The survival instinct makes you find solutions you never imagined ," he explains.
One of the most emotional moments was when, in a magazine that the kidnappers had brought him without checking it properly, he read an article about his mother, Angelina Casella.
She had become a symbol of the battle for her son's release, traveling as far as Calabria to raise public awareness and ask for help.
" When I read about it, I realized they hadn't forgotten about me. I knew they were fighting for me to come home ," Casella recalls.
According to him, the mother's campaign also affected the kidnappers' families. " They also had wives, mothers and daughters. Their families started talking about what was happening ," he says.
The turning point came at the end of 1989, when one of the most wanted men in the criminal group, Giovanni Strangio, was injured during a carabinieri operation. From the hospital, he began to cooperate with the authorities.
A short time later, the kidnappers informed Casella that they were releasing him. “ I didn’t know if they were taking me to freedom or to death ,” he recounts.
After hours of walking through the mountains, they left him near a stream, tied to an oleander tree. He managed to free himself and began to call for help.
Two cars didn't stop. The third agreed to help. Casella knocked on the first house he saw with lights on.
" They opened the door for me and started crying. They took me inside, gave me something to drink and called the carabinieri ," he recalls.
On January 30, 1990, after 743 days of captivity, Cesare Casella was released. He says the experience changed his life forever, but it did not leave him with hatred.
" Today I believe in karma. I don't hold grudges. I have chosen to continue my normal life ," Casella concludes.
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