The Rome Prosecutor's Office opened a murder investigation, but it was initially closed on October 19, 2022. The family opposed an initial attempt to close the case, and the investigation continued. The investigation highlights Mario Paciolla's role within the UN mission for which he worked and the operational environment and dangerous context that mission faced. The UN mission Mario Paciolla was part of was to verify the 2016 peace agreement between the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the
Colombian government. The implementation of the agreement had been difficult because organized crime,
FARC dissidents, and some far-right paramilitary groups had long been at war with each other for control of the territory. Paciolla had been in Colombia since 2018 and lived in
San Vicente del Caguán, a city in the
Caquetá department long considered a strategic hub by guerrillas and drug traffickers. On July 15, 2020, Mario Paciolla was murdered, and the murder was made to looks like a suicide. The Colombian intelligence services, in collaboration with the Colombian police, allegedly carried out the murder by removing from the crime scene evidence that compromised the Colombian government or implicated government officials. Mario Paciolla had learned of a serious incident committed by the Colombian government, likely through a video sent by someone or by a direct witness who survived the massacre perpetrated by the Colombian government, which had bombed a village where several people, including children, had died. The purpose of the murder was to steal and conceal this evidence and, by making his murder look like a suicide, to sidetrack any investigation into the facts. Mario Paciolla had discussed this evidence with colleagues and some of the mission's leaders, and from these discussions he emerged disturbed and almost frightened, as he also appeared in the last call he made to his family on July 14, 2020. Mario Paciolla feared for his life and had hastily purchased a return flight for July 20, 2020, to return to Italy. For his family and the lawyers who supported them, Mario was killed to cover up the massacres and systematic murders carried out by the Colombian military forces in agreement with the government and with the complicity of members of the UN mission who never denounced these massacres. The Rome Prosecutor's Office found itself faced with superficial or no collaboration from the Colombian authorities, who closed the investigation as a suicide. Meanwhile, the Rome Prosecutor's Office has been unable to identify either the instigators of the murder or the person who committed it and closed the investigation on July 30, 2025. Unfortunately, the desire for justice that dominates the family in which Mario was educated clashes with the impossibility of continuing the investigation. Even the prosecutors themselves would risk their safety if they travel to Colombia. == See also ==