This morning, along the state road 640 “Strada degli Scrittori”, in the Gasena district in the municipality of Agrigento, the Livatino Park dedicated to the young judge who was a victim of the mafia was inaugurated. The area, of approximately 4,500 m2, was granted by Anas for a period of 10 years to Co.N.Al.Pa. (National Coordination of Trees and Landscape), a non-profit association which, with the help of numerous volunteers, has planted around 800 shrubs to beautify and adorn the new park. Each new plant that grows will be dedicated to an innocent victim of mafia attacks. Already in the mid-90s Anas had authorized the placing of a commemorative stele on the site of Judge Livatino’s martyrdom so that the sacrifice he made in a daily fight against the mafia would not be forgotten. In July 2017, the stele was vandalized and seriously damaged by unknown persons, but after two months, also thanks to the interest of Anas, it was rebuilt and returned to the community.
At the inauguration ceremony of the Park, the blood-soaked shirt that Judge Livatino wore the morning he lost his life under the gunshots of the Stidda killers was exhibited. The event was attended by: the vice prefect of Agrigento, Massimo Signorelli; the archbishop of Agrigento, Alessandro Damiano; the mayor of Agrigento Francesco Miccichè; the director of the Anas territorial structure in Sicily, Raffaele Celia; the police commissioner of Agrigento, Tommaso Palumbo and several local representatives of the public security forces.
Rosario Livatino was born in Canicattì on 3 October 1952. He continued his studies in law with considerable success and at the age of 25 he became a judge. Right from the start he espoused the cause of fighting the mafia. Livatino was known as “The Boy Judge” due to his very young age. He lost his life as a magistrate serving at the Court of Agrigento, barbarically killed by the mafia on the morning of 21 September 1990, at the age of 37, on the SS 640, while going to his workplace without an escort, to which he had deliberately gave up, despite knowing that he had ended up in the inexorable sights of Cosa Nostra. On 9 May 2021, in the cathedral of San Gerlando in Agrigento, he was proclaimed Blessed in the Holy Mass celebrated by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He is the first Blessed magistrate in the history of the Catholic Church.
Exactly three years after the completion of the beatification process – next to the stele – it was decided to create and dedicate a park to the “Boy Judge” which bears his name and which is a place of worship, memory and prayer, but also a symbol of the fight against all mafias and criminal organizations.
