President Sergio Mattarella on Monday led Italy’s commemorations for the 30th anniversary of the murder of anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three of his bodyguards, by Cosa Nostra in the 1992 Capaci bomb attack. “Thirty years have passed since that terrible May 23 when the history of our Republic seemed to stop, as if annihilated by pain and fear,” Mattarella said during a commemoration ceremony in Palermo. “The deafening silence after a boom, the likes of which had never been heard before, effectively portrays the disorientation of the country when faced with that unprecedented attack”.
The huge bomb attack on the A29 Trapani-Palermo highway also killed Falcone’s wife Francesca Morvillo and three members of his security detail, Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo and Antonio Montinaro. Falcone’s friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino was killed two months later by another huge Cosa Nostra bomb.
Falcone led the investigation that culminated in the so-called Maxi Trial in which over 300 people were convicted, in the process proving that the Sicilian Mafia actually did exist, something that was not universally accepted at the time. Falcone and Borsellino were killed in a bombing campaign launched by Cosa Nostra after the supreme court upheld the Maxi Trial convictions, making them definitive. Mattarella admitted on Monday that many of Falcone’s colleagues were among those who were hostile towards him. “Falcone’s cutting-edge, clearly prophetic vision was not always understood,” Mattarella stated. “On the contrary, in some cases, it was opposed by attitudes that were widespread within the judiciary itself. “Over time the judiciary has overcome its mistakes and been able to take on board and make the most of that vision.”
Rosaria Costa, the widow of Vito Schifani, made an appeal on Monday for “the men who betrayed the State” to reveal the truth about the Mafia attack. It is suspected that people outside Cosa Nostra were involved in the attack, possibly including figures from within the State itself. “Collaborate, let us know the truth,” Costa told RAI radio. “I would say to you to behave with dignity, including with respect to the forces of law and order that wear a uniform, and not stain it, as those who betrayed it in the past did. My appeal is to try to have a conscience because you are going to face God about this.” Costa made a moving appeal during the funeral of the victims of the Capaci bombing, telling the mafiosi that she would forgive them, but only if they “kneel down and have the courage to change. But they won’t change,” she said in a tearful address that expressed the dismay of the nation. Schifani was 27 when he was murdered.
Falcone’s sister, Maria Falcone, said she would toast with Italian justice and interior ministers when fugitive and reputed number one super-boss Matteo Messina Denaro, the Sicilian Mob’s most wanted man, is captured. Messina Denaro, aka Diabollik, 60, has been on the run since 1993. “It will be beautiful when we capture Matteo Messina Denaro too,” Falcone said at an event in Palermo. “When it happens, we will raise a toast together, with the interior minister and the justice minister.”
