It is just past 11:30 pm. It is raining, the road is dark, and only the flashing lights illuminate it. Two women arrive running, one of them is on the phone, talking on speakerphone. She approaches, screams, and cries: "My brother, my brother is dying." The carabinieri (italian police) try to stop her, try to calm her down. It is an impossible mission: "Where is Youssef? Where is he?", she repeats. And Youssef is there, just over two hundred meters from her. He is lying on the asphalt in front of the window of a house. He is now dead.

His brother - Youssef Saadani, 28 years old, who will turn 29 on November 11 - was "killed" a few hours earlier, around 8 pm, at the end of Via Pisa in Sesto San Giovanni (Milan) in what has all the hallmarks of a targeted raid. He and two of his friends - a 30-year-old from Libya and a 31-year-old Moroccan - fell into a trap that was probably set by a rival group. Stories of drugs and trafficking, perhaps of debts. The investigations by the carabinieri of the Sesto Company and the investigative unit of Milan, led by Colonel Antonio Coppola and Lieutenant Colonel Fabio Rufino, have reconstructed what for now looks like the film of an ambush that ended in murder.

Youssef, the two "partners" and a fourth man - the only one who remained unharmed - arrive at Via Pisa around 8 pm. It is very likely that they have an appointment with the person who will then start the "Wild West". They take the small road that leads to the building at number 439, a road between the bushes, isolated, that goes towards the highway and the cemetery. When they reach the point where the small piece of road turns to the left, hell breaks loose. The attackers surprise the four from behind and start shooting. At least four casings, all of large caliber, from a long gun, and three or four bullets, therefore shots that went astray, not fired, remain on the asphalt. The 27-year-old is hit in the shoulder, but the bullet goes through and passes through the neck. The young man tries to save himself, he runs away, he flees towards a yellow house that is at the end of a sort of small "corridor" with two fences on the sides and then collapses. The rescuers from the 118, alerted by terrified residents, try to resuscitate him and intubate him, but it is all in vain.

The 30-year-old and the 31-year-old are reached, but they escape their fate. The younger one is injured by a shotgun blast to the arm and ends up at the San Giuseppe emergency room, while the older one is beaten to death with a baseball bat and is hospitalized at the San Raffaele. None of them are in danger of life. It is precisely them - even if their words need to be weighed and verified - who tell the investigators some details of what happened just before.

During the surveys, which went on until late at night in the presence of the public prosecutor of the Monza prosecutor's office, Alessandro Pepè, the carabinieri recovered the casings and bullets, the trail of which stops at a specific point on the road: a clear sign that the victims could actually have been surprised from behind and then chased until the attackers fled when the "job" was over. The escape would have taken place in two cars: the hope of those investigating is that some CCTV cameras may have captured the cars' race. The dead and the wounded, on the other hand, would have arrived in Via Pisa on a scooter, which was found on the right side of the road, right at the point where the shooting would have started.

There are few doubts among investigators and investigators: the fatal ambush would have matured in the drug world, also because all the victims have a history of drugs. It remains to be seen whether the appointment was to close a deal or if - as is more likely - the two groups had some old dispute to resolve. To be "washed" with blood.

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Here is the original version. The article is part of the english selection of the online metropolitan newspaper MilanoToday.it