Borsellino, the story of a 30-year long cover-up
Endless investigations and many courtrooms for a justice that remains unfinished and for a cover-up that has lasted for 30 years.
A State that is trying dozens of bosses and itself, and on which thick fogs continue to gather about the "external environments" that undoubtedly acted and, some claim, are still acting to keep the truth at bay. It is a fact that thirty years have not been enough to identify those responsible for what was defined in his closing speech by the prosecutor of Caltanissetta, Salvatore DeLuca, “a gigantic and unprecedented cover-up that covered up high-level mafia alliances”, caught in the planning, execution and 'cover-up' phases of the massacre in Via D'Amelio on 19 July 1992.
A diversion that, as the former Palermo prosecutor Roberto Scarpinato has been repeating for some time, has not ended, but continues. On July 12, the trial of three police officers ended with an acquittal and two statutes of limitations. They were accused of having divert the investigation following the massacre on Via D'Amelio. On trial are the official Mario Bo and the retired inspectors Michele Ribaudo and Fabrizio Mattei.
Ribaudo was acquitted because the fact does not constitute a crime, for the other two the crime has expired. In the courtroom, to attend the reading of the ruling, also two of Paolo Borsellino's three children, Lucia and Manfredi. The prosecution had requested 11 years and 10 months for Mario Bo and 9 and a half years each for Fabrizio Mattei and Michele Ribaudo.
57 DAYS LATER
Paolo Borsellino, 51, a 28-year-old prosecutor in the Sicilian capital after having headed the Marsala prosecutor's office, had lunch in Villagrazia with his wife Agnese and his children Manfredi and Lucia. Then he went with his escort to via D'Amelio, where his mother and sister lived. A Fiat 126 parked near his mother's house with about one hundred kilos of TNT on board exploded as the judge passed by, also killing the five officers. It was 16.58:XNUMX p.m.
Fifty-seven days after the Capaci attack that killed Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and the escort agents. The explosion, in the heart of Palermo, was felt throughout much of the city. The car bomb killed Emanuela Loi, 24, the first female police officer in a team of agents assigned to the escorts; Agostino Catalano, 42; Vincenzo Li Muli, 22; Walter Eddie Cosina, 31, and Claudio Traina, 27. The only survivor was agent Antonino Vullo.
PERSISTENT SHADOW AREAS
The Court of Cassation in its ruling on Borsellino quater filed in November 2021, referred to the “persistent 'grey areas' on the Via D'Amelio massacre affair”, recalling the “disappearance of Paolo Borsellino's red diary, the statements of witnesses who intervened immediately after the explosion, statements revealing contradictions that the investigations carried out have not allowed to overcome”, as well as “the anomaly of the involvement of the SISDE in the investigations” and the “external and internal conditioning” on the investigation.
THE INTEREST OF POWER GROUPS
The massacre of via d'Amelio “it undoubtedly represents a tragic mafia crime, due to a very precise strategy of terror adopted by Cosa Nostra, as it is gripped by fear and well-founded fears for its survival due to the judicial response given by the State through the 'maxi-trial'”I “probative data relating to the aforementioned 'grey areas'”, recalled the Supreme Court, retracing the merits of the rulings, “can at most lead to the hypothesis of the presence of other subjects or power groups (co-)interested in the elimination of Paolo Borsellino”, but this "does not exclude the recognition of the 'mafia paternity' of the attack in via D'Amelio and its connection to the 'strategy of massacres' deliberated by Cosa Nostra, first of all, as a 'response' to the outcome of the maxi-trial".
So the bitterness remains for the latest sentence on the cover-up, a further blow to the confidence of the Borsellino family who are preparing to appeal through their lawyer Fabio Trizzino: “There was a diversion,” says.
Court "he did not accept our reconstruction especially the aggravating circumstance, but the fact that I would like to highlight – added Trizzino – is that Doctor Bo and Inspector Mattei committed slander. The statute of limitations saves them because the facts date back to almost thirty years ago, the element of slander remains”. A sentence, however, “which does not satisfy us”.
THE RED AGENDA AND EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENTS
Lia Sava, Attorney General of Palermo, with a decade of experience in Caltanissetta where he investigated at length the 1992 massacres in Capaci and via D'Amelio, lists the pieces still missing from the truth about the massacres, via D'Amelio in particular, whose thirtieth anniversary is tomorrow: “Borsellino's red diary disappeared – he told AGI – and the 'extraneus' in the garage on Via Villasevaglios, where the TNT was loaded into the 126 used for the attack, and which Gaspare Spatuzza talks about.
Element that connects to the other outsider to the clans, who was allegedly in the garage in Troia when the TNT for the Capaci massacre was ground. Which however does not mean that there were external instigators, because Cosa Nostra does not let anyone dictate anything to it. In fact, we have always spoken of external competitors”.
THE DISTURBING SURVEY
Then the most disturbing aspect: the famous "pulse check" he talked about Nino Giuffre: “It was the survey in environments external to the mafia - he adds still the high magistrate - to decide whether to proceed with what the commission had already previously decided, that is to kill Falcone and Borsellino in the event of a negative outcome of the maxi-trial in the Supreme Court. The pulse test had a favorable outcome, from those external and deviant environments came the approval. And in this direction we continue to investigate, to identify them: it being understood that trials are not sociology, but are done by collecting elements to bring to the trial and to transform into evidence”.
The Caltanissetta court in its July 12 ruling also ordered the transmission of the documents to the prosecutor's office for the false repentant Scarantino for slander and false testimony and regarding the statements made by four other police officers as witnesses suspected of falsehood or reticence. A tragically never-ending story.
But the Attorney General Sava assures: “We know a lot about the massacres and it is not a defeat to continue investigating, 30 years later. The anxiety for truth and justice and the desire to fill the black holes, 360 degrees, are not only those of the victims' families, but belong to an entire country. The maximum effort will always be made to arrive at a truth as complete as possible".
Article published on 19 July 2022 - 09:41
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