A mystery still unsolved. 32 years have passed since the Capaci del massacre May 23, 1992the day of the judge’s death Giovanni Falcone, of his wife Francesca Morvillo and the escort agents Antonio Montinaro, Vito Schifani And Rocco Dicillo. All killed by the explosion of 5 kilos of TNT, which at 5.58pm – on the A29 motorway, at kilometer 5, near the Capaci-Isola delle Femmine junction – blew up the magistrate’s car. But more than three decades later, a mystery still remains: the deputy’s prediction Vittorio Sbardella, of the Andreottian current of Christian democracy, which he had through a small news agency close to him anticipated the attack.
How the Capaci massacre came about: the maxi trial
Saturday 23 May 1992, at 5.58pm, a very powerful charge of TNT placed under the motorway, it kills Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and the three escort agents: Antonio Montinaro, Vito Schifani and Rocco Dicillo.
To understand the tragic epilogue we must go back at least six years, to February 10, 1986: that day, in the bunker room of the Ucciardone prison in Palermo, the maxiprocess to the mafia.
Totò Riina in the Ucciardone bunker classroom, 28 February 1993
From the collaborator’s statements Tommaso Buscetta the structure emerges Cosa Nostra.
Almost two years later, the December 16, 1987 reads the sentence first degree: 19 life sentences for all leaderscondemned more than 300 people.
For public opinion, Giovanni Falcone, the magistrate who first managed to significantly strike the mafia, is a hero. He represents the redemption of Sicily, and of the State, from malfeasance.
But the January 19, 1988 comes the first great defeat of his life: in the Palazzo dei Marescialli, the Superior Council of the Judiciary is called to appoint the head of the Education Office of Palermo in place of Antonino Caponnetto (taken over from Chinnici, killed the July 29, 1983).
The heir, once the maxi-trial had just ended, should have been Giovanni Falcone. But he is appointed instead Antonino Melia choice justified by the greater seniority of service.
Falcone himself identified that decision as a sort of judgment of death: Caponnetto, a few days after Capaci, actually said that Falcone had started to die in January 1988.
Before him, Chinnici had been killed, but also Beppe Montana (July 28, 1985), Antonino Cassarà (6 August 1985, brilliant investigator and Falcone’s right-hand man).
Next on the Cosa Nostra list are Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino: in Palermo they are not able to protect them, so they are sent toAsinara, in isolation where they actually prepare the maxi-trial. The State presented the bill to them and their respective families: “10 thousand lire a day for the guesthouse, plus meals”, Borsellino revealed in 1988.
Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino
The accusations against Falcone and the attempted attack in Addaura
But Falcone’s problems have yet to begin.
In the June 1989 some anonymous letters accuse the magistrate and the police leaders of immoral behaviors.
The sender is nicknamed by journalists The Ravenbecause he was suspected of being a magistrate (the reference to the plumage would therefore be given by the black toga).
In the letters it is written that Salvatore Contorno, collaborator of justice, was used improperly by Falcone, allowing him to return to Palermo and allowing him to take private justice of all his adversaries Corleonesi, historical enemies.
The accusations are revealed infamous slanders, but they are only a preview of what happens on June 20, 1989: on the rocks in front of the villa that the magistrate rents to‘Addaura a bag is found with 58 sticks of dynamite.
Precisely on those rocks, with Falcone, there must have been two Swiss magistrates For international rogatory letters on drug trafficking.
The judge confides to his sister Maria that he is “a walking corpse”, and in an interview he speaks of hidden centers of power, capable of also guiding the choices of Cosa Nostra. And raises suspicions about the presence of colluding politicians with the mafia.
The new investigations by the Caltanissetta prosecutor’s office on the Addaura have led to the discovery of two men: the collaborator of the secret services, Emanuele Piazza, and the police officer, Nino Agostino.
Photo source: ANSAThe Addaura cliff
They are Falcone’s two saviors, yes they were infiltrators in Cosa Nostra, intervening to avoid the attack: and that’s why they were killed.
A few weeks after the Addaura attack, Falcone leaves the Education office and goes to Palermo Prosecutor’s Office where relationships with Pietro Giammanco (believed to be close to Andreotti), the new chief prosecutor, they are made stormy.
In February 1991 Claudio Martelli, Minister of Justice (socialist), calls him to Rome and offers him the position of director of Criminal Affairs, al Ministry of Justice: Falcone accepts and is defined as a traitor.
In reality, he was convinced that in Rome it was possible to build the tools that were missing in the fight against the mafia: from 41bis (at the beginning it only concerned the riots in prison, it was “born” in 1975; after Capaci the second paragraph is inserted, dedicated to organizations criminals) to the seizure of assets, passing through the Dia (Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate) and the National Prosecutor’s Office. All initiatives that, once Falcone died, were able to be used.
The final life sentences in the maxi-trial: Salvo Lima and Capaci
The January 30, 1992 the Supreme Court confirms them life sentences of the maxi-trial, establishes the validity of the Buscetta theorem e breaks the myth of the mafia’s impunity.
The 6 March 1992 Elio Ciolini writes to the judge Leonardo Grassi: “They will happen bomb explosions and themurder of a political exponent of the PSI, PCI, DC”.
The prophecy comes true just 6 days later when the March 12, 1992to Mondello, gets killed Except Lima: is the response to the Supreme Court ruling.
Member of the European Parliament of the DC, Lima was part of the current of Andreotti in Sicily.
Parliament is in stalemate, it is not possible to elect the new President of the Republic, and therefore to form the Government: Andreotti resignson April 24, 1992Amato is named the June 28, 1992.
In between, there is the May 23, 1992: the Capaci massacre.
Two days later, the May 25, 1992, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro (on the 16th ballot) becomes President of the Republic.
On 19 July 1992, however, Paolo Borsellino was killed.
The mystery of Sbardella’s prediction
Two days before the Capaci massacre, therefore on May 21, 1992, through the press agency Republic (which is not linked to the most famous newspaper), the deputy Vittorio Sbardella, of the Andreotti current of the DC, releases a comment that compares the stalemate that was created in Parliament to the political situation of 1978, the year of the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro.
The next day, the may 22, sends a second comment that hypothesizes an equally tragic event:
“The parties, without a strategy of tension that places a nice external bang as in Moro’s time, they could not accept delegitimizing themselves”.
Photo source: ANSAVittorio Sbardella
Capaci, 32 years later: what we know
The trials established that:
- The one who blew up the highway was the one who operated the remote control Giovanni Brusca, the man who among other things killed and dissolved little Giuseppe Di Matteo, son of a repentant, in acid;
- on 26 September 1997 the trial of the perpetrators of the attack ended with 24 life sentences and lesser sentences for five collaborators (Salvatore Cancemi, Mario Santo Di Matteo, Calogero Ganci, Gioacchino La Barbera, Giovan Battista Ferrante). On appeal another five life sentences will be added, but after two annulments the Court of Cassation will finalize the sentences confirming the responsibility of Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, Francesco And Giuseppe Madonia, Pippo Calò, Pietro Aglieri and the other components of the ‘dome’;
- one of the trials celebrated in Caltanissetta highlighted the role of Matteo Messina Money who on 21 October 2020 was sentenced tolife sentence. According to the judges, his support for the criminal plan developed by Riina’s men was decisive;
- before the sentence on Messina Denaro, on 21 July 2020 the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Caltanissetta confirmed the life sentence of four other defendants – Salvatore “Salvino” Madonia, Giorgio Pizzo, Cosimo Lo Nigro And Lorenzo Tinnirello – and the absolution of Vittorio Tutino;
- The 1July 9, 202331 years after the murder of Paolo Borsellino, the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Caltanissetta confirms the sentence tolife sentence of the boss Matteo Messina Moneyaccused of having been one of the principals of the massacres of Capable and via D’Amelio;
- The September 25, 2023 Matteo Messina Denaro dies.
Photo source: ANSA
