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The Sicilian mafia: a profile based on judicially confirmed evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Guido Lo Forte
Guido Lo Forte*
Affiliation:
Procura della Republica di Palermo, piazza V. E. Orlando, 90138 Palermo. E-mail: guido.loforte@giustizia.it
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Extract

This article reports the main findings of a paper first presented in May 1996 at a study conference organized by the Reform Commission of the Higher Council for the Judiciary (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, CSM). That presentation was published in full in Quaderni del Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, 1, 99, 1998, pp. 1–84. For reasons of space, most of the evidential materials are omitted here.

Type
Contexts and Debates
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 9 , Issue 1: Special Issue: gender and the private sphere in Italy since 1945 , May 2004 , pp. 69 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

1. The summary presented here is provided by Mark Donovan, Cardiff University, with John Dickie, University College London. Notes marked JD, and the index of key names are by John Dickie. Other notes are by the author. Translated by John Dickie and Mark Donovan.Google Scholar

2. The Italian ‘judiciary’ (magistratura) actually comprises both public prosecution and judicial offices. The Reform Commission is a body set up internal to the CSM that deals with the professional training of magistrates.Google Scholar

3. For the ‘maxi-trial’ verdict, see the sentenza (ruling) of the Court of Assizes of Palermo, dated 16 December 1987.Google Scholar

4. Cosa Nostra equates ‘valour’ with the ability efficiently, ruthlessly and discreetly to employ violence (JD).Google Scholar

5. The legal Italian state divides Sicily into nine provinces: Palermo, Caltanissetta, Agrigento, Trapani, Enna, Messina, Siracusa, Ragusa, Catania. Cosa Nostra follows the same administrative divisions, although it is traditionally rooted in the first four of these provinces, those located to the west of the island (JD).Google Scholar

6. On that date a ‘firing party’ made up of men of honour from across the province of Palermo and beyond burst into a building company office in viale Lazio in central Palermo and machine-gunned its occupants. The principal victim was Michele Cavataio, a man of honour who was blamed for the discord at the root of the ‘first mafia war’ of 1962–63 (JD).Google Scholar

7. The trial, carried out in Palermo, was one of a series in the 1960s and 1970s that saw many mafia defendants acquitted for lack of evidence or—as was true in this cases of Badalamenti and Leggio—given only relatively light sentences (JD).Google Scholar

8. As numerous mafia defectors, starting with Tommaso Buscetta, have emphasized, the Corleonesi are not just the Corleone Family of Cosa Nostra; rather they are a faction which is led by men from Corleone but which cuts across the whole organization. The word used by Buscetta to describe them was a schieramento, a ‘formation’ or an ‘alliance’ (JD).Google Scholar

9. During 1993 the Sicilian mafia placed bombs in Rome, Milan and Florence. The targets were historic buildings and churches, passers-by and members of the forces of order. Ten people were killed (JD).Google Scholar

10. The ‘Buscetta theorem’ was the (originally pejorative) name applied to the prosecution case in the ‘maxi-trial’ based on the evidence of Tommaso Buscetta. Its central component related to the role of the Commission within Cosa Nostra (JD).Google Scholar

11. Quotations from Professor Giovanni Verde, Vice President of the CSM, La Repubblica, 7 April 2000; dott. Gioacchino Natoli, member of the CSM, ibid; dott. Armando Spataro, member of the CSM, ibid. Google Scholar

12. Agenda 2000 is the EU's plan to promote development in poorer parts of the Continent. The regional plan for Sicily envisages spending €7.586 billion over six years (2000–06) (JD).Google Scholar

13. The Tribunali di Sorveglianza deal with all matters relating to the carrying out of punishments and the treatment of detainees in prison. They have tended to attenuate the special prison regime for mafiosi because legally they require rigorous proof that a detainee is currently in contact with mafiosi at large. Such proof is, needless to say, difficult to obtain.Google Scholar

14. ‘Dissociation’ is used to describe a formula which would allow imprisoned men of honour to win certain concessions in return for renouncing their membership of Cosa Nostra and recognizing the authority of the state without, however, going as far as to collaborate with justice (JD).Google Scholar