An Italian jeweller who shot dead two robbers after they raided his shop has been sentenced to 17 years in jail, sparking an intense debate on what constitutes legitimate defence.

The sentence was three years longer than the jail term requested by prosecutors.

Politicians on the Right leaped to the defence of the jeweller, Mario Roggero, saying he was only trying to defend himself and his family and criticising the sentence as overly harsh.

His shop, in the town of Grinzane Cavour in the northern Piedmont region, was held up by three robbers in April 2021.

They tied up his daughter, threatened his wife and pointed a pistol in his face.

“They were counting: five, four, three… I thought I was going to die,” Roggero told the Italian press.

After stuffing jewellery and watches into sacks, the group fled the premises.

CCTV footage showed Roggero following the trio onto the street, raising his arm and shooting dead two of the robbers, Giuseppe Mazzarino, 58, and Andrea Spinelli, 44.

He shot and wounded a third criminal, Alessandro Modica, 35, who staggered away with a bullet in his leg and was arrested a few hours later.

Prosecutors told the court in the northern town of Asti that the shootings amounted to “an execution”.

But Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Right-wing League party, expressed “full solidarity” with Roggero.

“After a life of hard work and sacrifices, he was just defending his life and his business,” Mr Salvini said. “The real criminals are the ones who deserve prison, not people like Mario.”

‘Ninety-five per cent of people would be against this sentence’

Lucio Malan, from the Brothers of Italy party led by the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said he believed the vast majority of Italians would regard the punishment as being too severe.

“If you carried out a survey, 95 per cent of people would be against this sentence,” he said.

During the trial, the jeweller said he had chased the robbers out of his shop because he had lost sight of his wife and feared they may have kidnapped her.

He also told the court that he had been robbed and beaten up in 2015 and had suffered trauma from that experience which had conditioned his response to the second raid.

“In his mind there was a reactivation of what had happened six years before,” a psychiatrist told the trial.

But the judges rejected those arguments and said his actions did not amount to legitimate self-defence.

‘A victory for criminality and delinquency’

In addition to the 17-year prison sentence, Roggero was ordered to pay €280,000 in compensation to the families of the two men he shot dead.

Shortly after the sentence was delivered, he denounced it as “a victory for criminality and delinquency”.

Many local people in Roggero’s hometown support him.

“The sentence is shameful,” said Gigi Cravanzola, a butcher who has a shop a few doors down from the jewellers.

“If those two criminals had not ventured out that evening then none of this would have happened.”

Roggero is expected to appeal the conviction.