Pio La Torre

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Pio La Torre
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
25 May 1972 – 30 April 1982
ConstituencyPalermo
Personal details
Born(1927-12-24)24 December 1927
Palermo, Italy
Died30 April 1982(1982-04-30) (aged 54)
Palermo, Italy
Cause of deathAssassinated by the Sicilian Mafia
Political partyCommunist Party
OccupationPolitician

Pio La Torre (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpiːo la ˈtorre]; 24 December 1927 – 30 April 1982) was a leader of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI). He was killed by the Mafia after he initiated a law that introduced a new crime in the Italian legal system, mafia conspiracy, and the possibility for the courts to seize and to confiscate the assets of the persons belonging to the mafia conspiracy.

Peasant leader

La Torre was born in

Confederterra, later on as the regional secretary of the Italian General Confederation of Labour (Cgil) and finally within the Italian Communist Party
(PCI).

In 1948 La Torre replaced peasant leader

Central Committee
of the PCI, and in 1962 he was elected as the regional secretary of the party for Sicily.

In Parliament

La Torre was elected in the

Democrazia Cristiana
).

On 31 March 1980, La Torre initiated a draft law that introduced a new crime in the Italian legal system, mafia conspiracy, and the possibility for the courts to seize and to confiscate the goods of the persons belonging to the mafia conspiracy.[2]

With the inclusion of the mafia conspiracy in article 416 bis of the Italian Penal Code, a serious gap was filled. In spite of its obvious danger, mafia conspiracy had not been recognized by the Penal Code as a criminal phenomenon. As a result, many judges had not considered the Mafia a criminal association. The provisions contained in article 416 of the Penal Code concerning

mafia-type association were suitable to cope with local and limited phenomena of associated delinquency, but not with organized crime.[3]

Return to Sicily

In 1981, La Torre requested of the party that he be sent back to Sicily where he became the regional secretary of the PCI. He also became part of the popular movement against the deployment of Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM) by the United States at Comiso Air Base, just like the journalist Giuseppe Fava. The missiles were stationed in June 1983 but were dismantled after the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was signed by the former Soviet Union and the United States on 8 December 1987. The last 16 GLCMs left the Comiso Air Base in 1991.

Killed by the Mafia

The bodies of Pio La Torre and Rosario Di Salvo after they have been killed by the Mafia

Before his new anti-Mafia law was approved in Parliament, La Torre was killed by the

Corleonesi, which were engaged in a fierce internal war against rival Mafia factions (the so-called Second Mafia War
) and against those representatives of the state that tried to seriously fight Cosa Nostra.

On 30 April 1982, La Torre and his driver

Pino Greco, Giuseppe Lucchese, Nino Madonia, Mario Prestifilippo and Salvatore Cucuzza. La Torre was "sentenced" to death by the Sicilian Mafia Commission
because of his political endeavour against the Mafia.

The day after General

Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa was appointed as prefect for Palermo to stop the violence of the Second Mafia War. La Torre's law was approved only after Dalla Chiesa was murdered as well on September 3, 1982, on the orders of Mafia boss Salvatore Riina
of the Corleonesi. That compelled Parliament to adopt the law La Torre initiated in a rush together with other emergency measures against the Mafia.

Antimafia law

The so-called Rognoni-La Torre Law (named after the backers of two proposals that were later unified, the Christian Democrat Minister Virginio Rognoni and Pio La Torre) or "Antimafia law", includes two fundamental innovations:

(a) The introduction in the legal system of a new crime, the mafia conspiracy;
(b) The possibility for the courts to seize and to confiscate the goods of the persons belonging to the mafia conspiracy, as well as of relatives, partners and cohabitants who in the past five years played a "front man" role or cover-up role for the mafia.

The Rognoni-La Torre Law granted the judiciary better access to bank records in order to follow money trails, allowed the state to seize and confiscate the assets of convicted mafiosi, and defined membership of the Mafia as a crime independent of other criminal acts.[4] Instead of just participating in Mafia activities, being associated with the Mafia in any way was a criminal offense.

Article 416 of the Italian Penal Code that has its origins in the

fascist period (1930), defined simple organized crime on the basis of the presence of three elements: the associative bond, the organized structure, the criminal program. Organized crime of the mafia-type presents additional specific characteristics: the associative bond has such an intimidating capacity to cause subjection and omertà. It is at such a level that it may be considered a system, an absolute rule of obedience and a law of silence that first of all demands, from the entire population, the refusal to collaborate with law enforcement. An actual submission to the power of the mafia.[5]

According to article 416 bis, introduced by the new law:

The organization is of the mafia-type when its components use intimidation, subjection and, consequentially, silence (omertà), to commit crimes, directly or indirectly acquire the management or the control of businesses, concessions, authorizations, public contracts and public services to obtain either unjust profits or advantages for themselves or others.[6]

The new Law was used by judge Giovanni Falcone to prosecute the Sicilian Mafia in the Maxi Trial that started in 1986.

Trial of the killers

On 12 April 1995,

Pippo Calò, Francesco Madonia and Nenè Geraci were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder.[7]

The Comiso Airport was dedicated to Pio La Torre.

See also

References

  1. ^ (in Italian) L’esperienza corleonese, La Sicilia, September 10, 2006
  2. ^ (in Italian) Norme di prevenzione e di repressione del fenomeno della mafia
  3. ^ Seindal, Mafia: money and politics in Sicily, p. 20
  4. ^ Schneider & Schneider, Reversible Destiny, p. 138
  5. ^ Law Enforcement in Italy and Europe against mafia and organized crime Archived 2007-08-17 at the Wayback Machine, by Umberto Santino, in W.F. McDonald (editor), Crime and Law Enforcement in the Global Village, Anderson Publishing Co., Cincinnati, 1997, p. 151-166
  6. ^ Effects of the new anti-mafia law on the proceeds of crime and on the Italian economy, Pino Arlacchi, Bulletin of Narcotics XXXIV, No. 4, 1984.
  7. ^ "Cronologia su mafia e antimafia" (in Italian). camera.it. Archived from the original on 2007-12-14.

External links

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