Via D'Amelio bombing
Via D'Amelio bombing | |
---|---|
Location | Palermo, Sicily, Italy |
Coordinates | 38°08′35″N 13°21′17″E / 38.143056°N 13.354722°E |
Date | 19 July 1992 4:58 PM |
Target | Paolo Borsellino |
Attack type | Assassination |
Weapons | Car bomb |
Deaths | 6 |
The via D'Amelio bombing (
The so-called agenda rossa, the red notebook in which Borsellino used to write down details of his investigations and which he always carried with him, disappeared from the site in the moments after the explosion. A carabinieri officer who was present when the explosion occurred reported he had delivered the notebook to Giuseppe Ayala, the first Palermo magistrate to arrive at the scene. Ayala, who said he had refused to receive it, was later criticized for saying escorts to anti-mafia judges should be reduced, despite evidence of further failed attempts to kill them in subsequent years.[3]
Bombing
The
The bomb, containing some 100 kilograms (220 lb) of
The bloodbath provoked outrage. The night after, protesters peacefully besieged the
Aftermath
Borsellino used to carry a red notebook, the so-called agenda rossa, in which he wrote down details of his investigations before making an official record in judicial reports. His colleagues were not given access to the agenda rossa.[citation needed]
Carabinieri officer Rosario Farinella said later that, after recovering the agenda rossa from the car, he gave it to Ayala.[8][page needed] Ayala said he was staying in a hotel nearby and rushed to the place after hearing the explosion. He initially stumbled on the corpse of Borsellino without recognizing it, as the dead judge was limbless. Ayala said "an officer in uniform" had offered him the notebook,[3] but that he had refused it because he lacked authority. Carabinieri captain Arcangioli said he was not wearing uniform at the scene.[3] In September 2005, Ayala changed his version, saying he took the agenda rossa while exploring the destroyed car and later gave it to a carabinieri officer who was there. Ayala's subsequent statements speak of an agent alternately in uniform and not in uniform.[3]
On 1 July 1992 Borsellino had held a meeting with Nicola Mancino, who at the time had just been appointed Minister of the Interior. Details of the meeting have never been disclosed, but it is likely that Borsellino had annotated them in his agenda. Mancino, however, always denied having met Borsellino.[3] In a television interview of 24 July 2009, Ayala said, "Mancino himself told me that he had met Borsellino on 1 July 1992. Moreover, Mancino showed me his appointments book, with the name of Borsellino on it."[3] Ayala repudiated this account in an interview in Sette magazine. A video showing Arcangioli holding the agenda rossa while inspecting the bombing area was aired in news on Italian state channel Rai 1 in 2006.[9]
A personal diary in the possession of Borsellino's family has an annotation by the judge that reads: "1 July h 19:30 : Mancino".[10] Vittorio Aliquò, another magistrate, later said he had accompanied Borsellino "up to the threshold of the minister's office".[11]
Investigations and sentences
In July 2007, the prosecutor's office in Caltanissetta opened an investigation into the possible involvement of agents from SISDE, Italy's civil intelligence service, in the massacre.[12] At the same time, a letter from Borsellino's brother Salvatore was published. Entitled 19 luglio 1992: Una strage di stato ("19 July 1992: A state massacre"), the letter supports the hypothesis that Minister of the Interior Mancino knew the reasons for the magistrate's assassination. Salvatore Borsellino wrote:[13]
I ask senator Mancino, who shed a tear, I remember, during a commemoration of Paolo in Palermo in the years after 1992, to strain his memory to tell us what they talked about in the meeting with Paolo in the days immediately before his death. Or to explain why, after phoning my brother to meet him when he was interrogating Gaspare Mutolo [a mafia pentito] just 48 hours before the massacre, he had him meet Police Chief Parisi and Bruno Contrada [a SISDE officer who was later convicted for leaking details of investigations to mafiosi], a meeting that disturbed Paolo so much that he was seen holding two lit cigarettes at the same time ... That meeting surely holds the key to his death and to the massacre of Via D'Amelio.
Investigations held by police telecommunications expert Gioacchino Genchi attested the presence of an undercover SISDE installation in Castello Utveggio, an
The first investigations led to the arrest of Vincenzo Scarantino on 26 September 1992, accused by pentiti of having stolen the car used in the explosion. Scarantino later became a pentito himself. The magistrates also discovered the phone of Borsellino's mother had been tapped. A first trial for the massacre ended on 26 January 1996, with Scarantino sentenced to 18 years in prison, while Giuseppe Orofino, Salvatore Profeta and Pietro Scotto, those who prepared the bomb and intercepted the phone, were sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1992, the Italian political world was shaken by the
After the new revelations, Sicilian attorneys started new investigations based on the hypothesis that Borsellino knew of the negotiations between the mafia, SISDE and senior politicians, and that he was assassinated because of this knowledge.[20] The existence of negotiations between Italian institutions and the Sicilian mafia was confirmed in 2012 by Caltanissetta prosecutor Nico Gozzo as "by now an established fact".[21]
The prosecutor in
Spatuzza claims that his boss, Giuseppe Graviano, told him in 1994 that future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was bargaining with the Mafia, concerning a political-electoral agreement between Cosa Nostra and Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia, in exchange for certain guarantees – such as to stop the 1993 Mafia bomb terror campaign, to force state institutions to moderate their crackdown against the Mafia after the murders of Antimafia magistrates Falcone and Borsellino. Berlusconi had entered politics and won his first term as prime minister in 1994. Berlusconi's right-hand man Marcello Dell'Utri was the intermediary, according to Spatuzza. Dell'Utri has dismissed Spatuzza's allegations as "nonsense".[25][26][27]
Spatuzza's assertions back up previous statements of the pentito
The alleged negotiations between Dell'Utri and the Mafia followed an earlier attempt with Vito Ciancimino, the local political link for the Corleonesi clan, who supposedly had contacted government officials after the killing of Falcone to negotiate a stop to the killing spree. Borsellino apparently had been informed of the machinations.[29][30] Two former colleagues of Borsellino have told investigators about a meeting with Borsellino in Palermo shortly before his death during which he broke down in tears saying, "A friend has betrayed me, a friend has betrayed me."[22] "My brother's death was a State murder," Paolo's brother Salvatore Borsellino claims. "My brother knew about the negotiations between the Mafia and the state, and this is why he was killed."[22]
On 20 October 2020, Matteo Messina Denaro was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Corte d'Assise for having been one of the instigators of the Via D'Amelio bombing.[31] After his capture in January 2023,[32] the sentence was confirmed on 18 July 2023.[33]
See also
- Capaci bombing, 1992 terrorist attack in which magistrate Giovanni Falcone was assassinated
References
- ^ "New Arrests for Via D'Amelio Bomb Attack". Corriere dell Sera. 8 March 2012. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
- Il Corriere della Sera(in Italian). RCS. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f Borsellino, Salvatore (27 September 2010). "Le domande che non-avrei voluto fare". Il Fatto Quotidiano (in Italian). Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ Interview of agent Vullo the day after the massacre. (in Italian)
- ^ ISBN 88-8112-407-6.
- Il Corriere della Sera(in Italian). RCS. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ Martorana, Giuseppe & Meli, Angelo. "Strage di via D'Amelio" (in Italian). Retrieved 17 July 2013.
- ISBN 978-8874246632.
- ^ "Gli ultimi giorni di Paolo Borsellino". Il Fatto Quotidiano. 19 December 2010.
- ^ Borsellino, Salvatore. "La Replica di Salvatore Borsellio al Sen. Mancino". Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ Alfano, Chicco. "Quell'agenda rossa di Paolo Borsellino..." Archived from the original on 12 June 2009. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ Bassi, Cristina. "Strage di via D'Amelio: 15 anni dopo, ancora troppi dubbi". Panorama. Mondadori. Archived from the original on 30 January 2009. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ "Il fratello di Borsellino: "Mancino ora sveli perché incontrò Paolo"". Il Giornale. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ After the revelation, Genchi was removed from the investigation and the Castello Utveggio case was archived by the Tribunal of Caltanissetta.
- ^ Palazzolo, Salvo (2010). "Il cavaliere Utveggio e i misteri di Palermo". I pezzi mancanti.
- ^ "Borsellino, Servizi segreti e Castello Utveggio". Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ a b "Via D'Amelio, 19 luglio 1992". Polizia e Democrazia website. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ "Borsellino bis, sette ergastoli Credibile il pentito Scarantino". repubblica.it. 14 February 1999.
- ^ "Ciancimino: FI frutto della trattativa Stato-mafia". Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ "Parla Riina:"Delitto di Stato". In pochi alla cerimonia". Il Secolo XIX. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ "Strage via D'Amelio, quattro nuovi arresti. 'Borsellino sapeva di trattative Stato-mafia'". ADN Kronos. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ a b c A Mafia Boss Breaks Silence on an Assassination Archived 22 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Time, 3 August 2009
- ^ Police Officers Investigated for Misdirecting Inquiries into Borsellino Killings Archived 10 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Corriere della Sera, 29 July 2009
- ^ (in Italian) Si riapre il caso Borsellino Archived 1 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine, La Stampa, 14 July 2009
- ^ a b Lawyer rejects turncoat's claims linking Berlusconi to mafia Archived 15 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Adnkronos International, 23 October 2009
- ^ Mafia witness 'boasted of links to Silvio Berlusconi' Archived 16 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine, BBC News, 4 December 2009
- ^ Silvio Berlusconi linked with Mafia bombing campaign Archived 16 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The Daily Telegraph, 4 December 2009
- ^ Berlusconi implicated in deal with godfathers, The Guardian, 5 December 2002
- ^ Italy: Ex-interior minister implicated in mafia negotiations Archived 23 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine, AND Kronos International, 25 July 2012
- ^ The mysteries of Italy Archived 28 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine, by Marco Travaglio, on Beppe Grillo's blog, August 2010
- ^ "Stragi Falcone e Borsellino, ergastolo per Messina Denaro. Anche lui fra i mandanti delle bombe del 1992". palermo.repubblica.it. 20 October 2020.
- ^ agencies, Staff and (16 January 2023). "Italy's most-wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro arrested". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
- ^ "Stragi '92: confermato ergastolo per Messina Denaro" (in Italian). ansa.it. 19 July 2023.
Sources
- Bongiovanni, Giorgio; Lorenzo Baldo (2010). Gli ultimi giorni di Paolo Borsellino. Aliberti. ISBN 978-8874246632.