(Arv) Venice 27 June. 2024 – Presented this morning in Venice, at Palazzo Ferro Fini, headquarters of the Veneto Regional Council, the book “Inculpable for having committed the crime – Story of Cristina Pavesi, victim of the Brenta mafia” by Gianluca Ascione and Michela Pavesi (Panda Edizioni ). The work recalls what happened on 13 December 1990, when Felice Maniero’s gang attacked a train traveling between Venice and Padua to steal the valuables contained in a postal carriage using an explosive charge whose explosion hit the other track, at he height of Barbariga di Vigonza (PD), also the convoy where Cristina Pavesi, a twenty-two-year-old university student originally from Treviso, close to discussing her degree thesis, was found, who was killed by the shock wave and the shrapnel. The authors narrate this story and outline its consequences by collecting in the text – prefaced by Libera, Gens Nova and Notice Pubblico – the story of Michela Pavesi, Cristina’s paternal aunt, unable to participate in the presentation, who entrusts the memoirs to the writer Gianluca Ascione. The Veneto Regional Council thus wanted to underline the importance of the memory of the victims of the mafia during a meeting during which Erika Baldin, Councilor and Secretary of the Presidency Office of the Legislative Assembly and promoter of the event, spoke. author Gianluca Ascione, Antonino Cappelleri, former Chief Prosecutor of Padua, the member of the Observatory for the fight against organized and mafia crime and the promotion of transparency Pierluigi Granata, the national coordinator of Public Notice Pierpaolo Romani.
“Today we are talking about innocent victims of the mafia – underlined Councilor Secretary Baldin – a very particular mafia that originates in our land, a mafia of rural origin, different from the others, but guilty of many crimes. In recent years the Council has taken several steps in the direction of combating organized crime, such as the establishment of the Observatory provided for by regional law 48 of 2012, a sort of “framework law” on legality which assigns the Observatory the role of collecting information on the evolution of criminal forms in the region and on the legality enforcement tools already present in the area, with the aim of developing proposals to further strengthen them. Lastly, the obligation for the Veneto Region to become a civil party in mafia trials was translated into law. In this context, we tell the story of Cristina Pavesi, with the author of the book.”
“I hadn’t looked for this story – Ascione recalled – it came to me when, two years ago, I observed the plaque in memory of Cristina Pavesi in the Treviso library, thus trying to begin the reconstruction of those facts for the first time, looking for documentation , testimonies, and above all to involve the family. This is how I met Michela, Cristina’s aunt, who allowed the figure of her niece reported in the book to emerge, in the hope that the reader can become ’empathetic’ with those who still today, like the families involved in these crimes, are condemned to a sort of moral life sentence: earthly justice did not help Cristina’s family, but in the days of commitment in memory of the innocent victims of the mafia it will be important to continue to keep this particular memory alive”.
“This is an important book – underlined Romani – for the particular bond between Notice Pubblico and Michela, Cristina’s aunt, who was able to transform her pain into a source of civic commitment, and whose reading pushes towards constant commitment , competent and qualified aimed at understanding what Veneto was in the 80s and 90s and what Veneto is today: Veneto is not a land of mafia, but it is of great interest to the mafias, i.e. the ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra, mafia, Sacra Corona Unita and foreign groups, a region where it is necessary to pay attention to what is happening in the economy and politics”.
“An important book – remarked Granata – also to prevent the past from repeating itself: young people have no memory of the mafia events in Veneto and there is no awareness of the current danger facing the region. The volume serves to talk about the mafia, a phenomenon also recognized as such by the Supreme Court, to prevent the past from coming back to the fore, as happened with the most recent investigations relating to the Tronchetto mafia, and for the renewed relationships with foreign criminal organizations , a path that saw the Brenta mafia as its precursor”.
“Memory, and in particular the memory narrated in the book – reiterated Antonino Cappelleri, former Chief Prosecutor of Padua – serves to understand and immunize oneself. One of the points also raised by the Pavesi affair is the following: was this crime mafia or high-level crime? The classic image is that of the southern mafias who aspire to command the territory through a clan leader who plays a role similar to that of a ‘feudal lord’ who tries to exercise totalizing control over the territory, infiltrating politics, law enforcement and the economy . The Brenta mob is different because it comes from a different mentality and this can also be seen from the statements on the phenomenon made by Felice Maniero, who said he had never sought an increase in the level of conflict with the institutions fearing retaliation, assuming thus a different profile for the southern groups, also compared to the phenomenon of kidnappings for extortion in the 70s and 80s, less ‘convenient’ compared to the control of drug trafficking. The Venetian mafia does not have the fiefdom as its reference model, but rather the illicit company and the attempt to undermine and repress the equally illicit ‘competition’. In the Brenta formation all the characteristics of the mafia formation are present, structured differently compared to the southern one”.
