Andrea Rocchelli

Rocchelli graduated in 2007 at the Polytechnic University of Milan where he was awarded a master's degree in Communications Design. Subsequently, he was trained by Magnum Photos photographer Alex Majoli. In 2008, with other four photographers, he founded Cesura, a photographic collective aiming to produce independent projects.

He worked as a freelance photojournalist with a diversified curriculum. He documented the Arab Spring in Libya and Tunisia, the violation of human rights in Kyrgyzstan and Ingushetia, the conditions of migrants in Southern Italy and organized crime. His principal interest had been eastern Europe and Russia. His photos have been published by a number of journals and magazines such as Le Monde, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta.[2]

When Rocchelli died, his first book, Russian Interiors, was about to be completed. The work was published posthumously by Cesura.[3]

Rocchelli was killed in Andriivka, Ukraine, near Sloviansk, on 24 May 2014 while reporting on the war in Donbass. He was travelling with the human rights activist and interpreter Andrei Mironov (also died in the attack), a French photo reporter, and a local driver. When they stopped to take some pictures near a railway line, the group was attacked with automatic weapons and mortar fire from the "Karachun" hill, where the Ukrainian army was stationed.[4] The Italian authorities described the attack that killed both Mironov and Rocchelli as murder.[5]

The last pictures Rocchelli took before his death precisely document the attack that killed him and Mironov and permanently injured Roguelon. These photographs testify to the duration of the shootings, the morphology of the area, and the civilian clothing worn by the victims.[6]

William Roguelon, the sole survivor of the attack among the reporters, said that the group was targeted by mortars and automatic weapons from the Karachun hill, where the National Guard of Ukraine and the Ukrainian army were stationed.[7]

The domestic inquiry carried out by the Ukrainian authorities explicitly failed to attest any responsibility of the double murder. The international rogatory issued by the Italian Authorities did not bring any result due to the lack of cooperation, the substantial negligence and severe delay from the Ukrainian side.[8][9]

In 2016 the Italian prosecutors, therefore, opened a second phase of the inquiries that led to the arrest of Ukrainian and Italian National Guard soldier Vitalii Markiv. [10]

Angelo Napolitano, Chief of the Penitentiary Police, reported that Markiv was planning to escape from prison in Pavia, therefore he was transferred to Opera prison in 2017.[11][4]

From wiretaps held by the Italian police during the captivity, Markiv was recorded saying that they, the Ukrainian army, killed some journalists.[4][12][13]

After the court hearing on 8 February 2019, the interpreter, an Ukrainian woman, who had to translate from Ukrainian to Italian, such as the transcription of environmental wiretapping in prison, renounced the translation assignment.[14] Markiv's attorney requests the cancellation of all work done by the woman during the trial.[15] A year later, a witness declared that she became aware of the real reasons behind the translator's abandonment of the job, declaring that the latter would have been threatened in a telephone call by an unknown person, in Ukrainian language, who would have asked her to retract their translations.[16][17]

Accused to contribute to the intentional murder of the two civilians, Markiv has been judged guilty by the Pavia court of justice on July 12th 2019 and condemned to serve 24 years in jail. The Ukrainian State, also involved in the trial as civil responsible of the attack, was then judged guilty.[18][19] The same sentence, furthermore, calls for the forwarding of the file concerning Commander Bogdan Matkiwsky for investigation by the Rome Prosecutor's Office because he is deemed the direct superior of Markiv during the operations that killed Rocchelli and Mironov.[20]

Mr Markiv and the Ukrainian State made an appeal to the verdict and the II grade trial took place in fall 2020 in Milan court of justice. On November 3rd 2020 the court, while holding the Ukrainian armed forces guilty of the murder of the journalists,[21] acquitted Mr Markiv mentioning articles 605 and 530 II section of the Italian penal code (lack of evidence).[22]

Rocchelli will subsequently listed on the Myrotvorets website, managed by the Ukrainian secret services and promoted by Anton Gerashchenko. On the photo of his page, which can be consulted online, the secret services applied the red wording "Liquidated", also reporting a note stating that the photojournalist was "cooperating with pro-Russian terrorist organizations" and that he had violated the border state of Ukraine to penetrate into the territory occupied by "Russian terrorist gangs".[23][24]

The Moscow Basmanny Court finds Vitaliy Markiv guilty of the murder of the two journalists[25] and he is charged in absentia under Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: "murder committed by a group of persons, a group of persons by previous concert, or an organized group by reason of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or by reason of hatred or enmity with respect to some social group".[26]