On Thursday, July 16, 1914, Nicolò Businco left prison after almost eighteen years of detention. With three other companions in misfortune – Giosuè Piroddi, Antonio Lorrai and Antonio Parlatariu di Tertenia – he was sentenced to life imprisonment, following a trial that caused a sensation at the time, for the murder of Ruggero Tedde, municipal secretary of Perdasdefogu, committed on the night of August 16, 1894.
In 1911, after patient investigations, the relatives of the condemned had succeeded in having the person who had determined the conviction of 1898 indicted for bribery and false testimony and in obtaining a review of the trial. The new trial, however, ended with the acquittal of the accused, even though some of them had confessed. Due to the perverse logic of bureaucracy, Piroddi and Businco (the other two had died in prison in the meantime), despite having been implicitly recognized as victims of a gross miscarriage of justice, were taken back to prison while waiting for their procedural position to be clarified.
Giosuè Piroddi was freed on 17 February 1912 while Nicolò Businco had to wait another twenty-nine months in the Oristano penitentiary.
