The Crime Book

142

journalists, as these murders

brought unwanted attention to

Sicilian organized crime as a whole.

If a boss wished to order a person

killed, it would have to be approved

by the commission.

Warring mafiosi

For approximately 20 years the

commission wielded little power,

largely because regional bosses

were accustomed to operating

independently. The commission

was unable to prevent the so-called

First Mafia War which erupted in

1961 between the Greco and the

La Barbera families, claiming 68

victims. The war culminated in the

infamous 1963 Ciaculli massacre,

in which seven police and military

officers were killed while they tried

unsuccessfully to defuse a car

bomb intended for Salvatore Greco.

The fallout for the Cosa Nostra

was significant. Within 10 weeks,

1,200 mafiosi were arrested.

The government established

an Anti-Mafia Commission headed

by Cesare Terranova, Palermo’s

former chief investigative

prosecutor. Ultimately, although

the investigation made many

significant discoveries – such as

THE SICILIAN MAFIA

collusion between former mayor of

Palermo, Salvo Lima, and the Cosa

Nostra – the political will to act on

the final report was lacking. The

Sicilian Mafia temporarily dissolved

their commission and hundreds of

prominent members fled to other

countries to avoid prosecution.

Beginning in the late 1970s,

mafiosi from the village of Corleone

made a successful bid for

dominance of the Cosa Nostra in

what would become known as the

Second Mafia War (1981–83). Led

by Salvatore “Totò” Riina, the

Corleonesi successfully took over

the largely ineffective Sicilian Mafia

Commission and transformed it

into a tool for exercising absolute

power. Although uneducated, the

Corleonesi more than made up for

this deficit with deviousness and

violence. Predictably, their rise

was accompanied by a dramatic

spike in the murder of public

figures, a departure from Cosa

Nostra’s modus operandi.

In 1979, four establishment

figures including Terranova were

killed in separate incidents. The

following year, the captain of

Monreale’s carabinieri, the

president of the Sicilian region, and

Palermo’s chief prosecutor were

killed in Mafia hits. In 1982, the

murder of Pio La Torre, an active

member of the Anti-Mafia

Commission, prompted a law that

made it illegal to belong to a

“Mafia-type association”. Later that

same year, General Carlo Alberto, a

national hero, anti-Mafia advocate,

and prefect of Palermo, was

murdered alongside his wife when

a dozen mafiosi sealed off the road

on which they were travelling and

emptied their machine guns into

his car. His funeral was broadcast

to weeping eyes all across Italy.

Legal offensive

For the first time, the Italian public

and the government decided to act

to break the Cosa Nostra’s deadly

grip on Sicily. A new law allowed

the government to confiscate the

wealth of convicts found to be

mafiosi, hindering their ability to

exercise power while in prison.

In July 1983, a car bomb

detonated in Palermo, killing chief

investigating magistrate Rocco

Chinnici, his two bodyguards,

and an innocent bystander. The

violence spurred Antonino

Losing face

In Mafia nomenclature, sfregio

(literally translating as “scar”

or “insult”) refers to a wound

resulting in disfigurement,

either in the form of a physical

scar or through humiliation

which causes the recipient to

“lose face”.

A common form of sfregio

is the vandalism or theft of

property owned or under the

protection of another mafioso.

This forces the victim to decide

whether or not he should

respond to the injury and, if so,

what the appropriate response

should be. If he chooses not

to respond, then he can be

perceived as being weak and

dominated by his aggressor.

The exchange of insults may

escalate to deadly levels.

One example of this is the

1897 executions of Olivuzza

family members Vincenzo Lo

Porto and Giuseppe Caruso,

which were sanctioned by the

heads of the eight families. They

had unanimously agreed that

the two men had inflicted an

ill-conceived insult upon the

leadership of their clan.

We are at war... The mafiosi

are firing with machine

guns and TNT. We can

only hit back with words.

There are thousands

of them and only a few

hundred of us.

Anonymous policeman

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143

Sicilian police inspect the aftermath

of the car bomb attack that killed

Judge Paulo Borsellino and his police

guards near the judge’s mother’s house

in Palermo, Sicily, on 20 July 1992.

Caponnetto, a career magistrate

who was planning to retire, to

step in as Chinnici’s replacement.

Caponnetto developed a team of

anti-Mafia magistrates. Going on

the offensive, he announced

that the authorities were now

working with ex-Mafia informant

Tommaso Buscetta, who was

ORGANIZED CRIME

providing information that would

finally prove the Cosa Nostra was

a single unified organization.

Caponnetto declared that the entire

Mafia, rather than individual

members or groups, was going on

trial. Caponnetto’s team went on to

issue 366 arrest warrants on the

strength of Buscetta’s testimony.

When further witnesses came

forward, more arrests were made.

Fierce response

Rather than toning down their

violence, the Corleonesi-controlled

Mafia escalated it. As Italy had yet

to develop an effective witness

protection programme, the Cosa

Nostra gunned down informant

Leonardo Vitale, Tomasso

Buscetta’s brother-in-law. Flying

squad officer Beppe Montana,

responsible for tracking down Mafia

fugitives, was killed in July 1985.

The next month, another flying

squad member, Antonino Cassarà,

was riddled with 200 bullets while

his wife looked on in horror.

The sheer scale of the violence

triggered what was known as the

“Palermo Spring”. Students held

anti-Mafia demonstrations in

Palermo, an influential clergyman

spoke openly of the “Mafia” for the

first time and shamed the national

government for not addressing the

problem, as did the mayor of

Palermo. Meanwhile, the anti-Mafia

magistrates had accrued enough

evidence to open a maxi-trial on

10 February 1986, in which 474

mafiosi and their allies were to face

charges. On 16 December 1987, ❯❯

I obeyed orders, and I knew

that by strangling a little boy I

would make a career for

myself. I was walking on air.

Salvatore Cancemi

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