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Theresa Maggio

Sicily

Mafia at its weakest now

September 22, 2019
Tags: anti-mafia, mafia, Palermo
An olive grove in Palermo where portraits of the victims of the attack on Giovanni Falcone hang as an act of remembrance. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Observer. Click here to read the full story in The Guardian.

From The Guardian...

by Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo
Sun 22 Sep 2019 09.36 BST
 
I remember the day as if it was yesterday – 23 May 1992, the day that changed Sicilians' lives for ever. I remember my mother's tears as she sat glued to the TV, watching what looked like an earthquake. Cars buried in rubble, streets ripped open, dozens of photographers and police officers on the scene of what in my mind could only have been a natural disaster.

I quickly realised that wasn't the case – that a terrible murder had been committed. The white Fiat Croma buried in the dirt was carrying Cosa Nostra's number one enemy, the anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone. Mafia bosses had placed 300kg of explosives under the motorway between the airport and Palermo. As the convoy of cars surrounding the Fiat got closer, the bomb was detonated, killing Falcone, his wife and three members of his police escort.



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25th anniversary of Mafia/State murder of Paolo Borsellino

July 19, 2017
Tags: Paolo Borsellino, judge, investigator, anti-mafia, assassination, escorts, 25th anniversary, mafia, state, people, sorrow, Grief, Hero, martyr, honest
Cardboard cututs of Borsellino and fellow victims on the balcony of his mother's apartment in Via D'Amelio, Palermo
After the church bells tolled, after the minute of silence at 4:58 p.m., the moment the car bomb exploded twenty-five years before, the assassinated Judge Paolo Borsellino's brother read the names of the victims:
Paolo Borsellino
Agostino Catalano
Emanuela Loi
Walter Eddiee Cosina
Claudio Traina
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Libera is hiding mothers who turn their backs on mafia

September 29, 2015
Tags: protection program, libera, anti-mafia, mothers who rebel, save the children, hide, save, help, Don Luigi Ciotti
Photo: Letizia Battaglia. Boy plays at assassination near the Church of Santa Chiara, Albergheria, Palerermo 1982
The leader of the anti-mafia group "Libera" (which means "Free") today let it be known that for some time his group has been hiding mothers who want to leave the environment of their mafia families so that their children can grow up free to be anyone they want. It is a grass roots protection program for those who are not collaborating with the state and have the witness protection program to save them. For te women, it means leaving their homeland husbands and extended families. It means creating a new law that allows these children to receive new legal names so that wherever they go, they will be safe in school.
Father Luigi Ciotti, president of the non-profit anti-mafia association Libera, said that "so many women, for the love of their children, have decided to rebel against the mafia reasoning, and the reasoning of their own families, saying 'enough' and asking for help. Many are not collaborating with the law, nor are they trial witnesses but they are asking for a hand. We asked politicians to set up a new legal mechanism to open a third way out, because many women are not capable of collaborating. We have reached an agreement but we need to speed up the process." Read More 
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Falcone's remains secretly moved to Palermo's Pantheon

June 3, 2015
Tags: Giovanni Falcone, law, anti-mafia, judge, killed, assassinated, coffin, mve, cemetery, San Domenico
The blessing of Giovanni Falcone's remains at the Church of San Domenico where it was transferred in secret.
The remains of anti-mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone, killed by the mafia and the state 23 years ago, were moved in a secret ceremony from the family mausoleum in the Sant' Orsola Cemetery to a place of honor among Sicily's finest historical figures in the Church of San Domenico, Palermo's Pantheon, in Via Roma near the heart of the old city. Read More 
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Roberto Helg, head of Palermo's Chamber of Commerce, arrested for extortion

March 3, 2015
Tags: pizzo, protection money, extortion, Palermo, chamber of commerce, anti-mafia, blowhard, no trust, hard to run a business in palermo
The sign says:" If you trust us, we will help you avoid being a victim." Oh, the irony of it all.
From today's La Repubblica. This man who paid lip service to anti-extortionists and anti-mafia movements was caught red handed pocketing part of the 100,000-EURO fee he charged a pastry-shop owner in order to renew his lease at the Palermo airport. At first he denied the  Read More 
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