2023-07-19 16:16:54
Italy
Life sentence for wet godfather in 1992 assassination of Judge Falcone
Matteo Messina Denaro, the head of Cosa Nostra was arrested last January, following thirty years on the run. This mafioso was sentenced on appeal, this Wednesday in Sicily, to life imprisonment.
PostedJuly 19, 2023, 6:16 PM
Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro had already been convicted in absentia in 2020, while still on the run.
An Italian Assize Court on Wednesday sentenced ex-mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro to life imprisonment on appeal for his role in the murders in 1992 of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, according to Italian media.
The assizes of Caltanissetta, in Sicily, thus confirm the verdict pronounced by default in October 2020, when the head of Cosa Nostra, arrested in early 2023, was still at large. His lawyer, Me Adriana Vella, had asked for the acquittal, saying that his client had had no role in these assassinations, neither as a sponsor nor as an executor.
Two bomb attacks that caused a shock wave
In May 1992, a powerful explosion ripped open a portion of the highway between Palermo and its airport. The explosion had been so powerful that the National Institute of Geophysics, which usually takes the pulse of the Etna volcano, had recorded it. The antimafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three members of his escort were killed in this attack.
Two months later, Judge Paolo Borsellino, considered “the Siamese brother” of the murdered magistrate, was also killed in a bomb attack with five members of his escort. These two assassinations had caused a shock wave in the country and a firm response from the State, which had deployed numerous riflemen and police officers on the island to track down the mafia leaders.
In this archive interview, Judge Falcone explains: “The important thing is to know how to live with fear, not to let it condition us. That’s courage.”
YouTube
Sur les traces de Toto Riina et Bernardo Provenzano
Matteo Messina Denaro, a cruel killer at the head of a major financial network and arrested on January 16 in Sicily, followed in the footsteps of the great historical leaders of Cosa Nostra, Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, who died in prison in 2017 and 2016 respectively.
He was, like his predecessors, repeatedly sentenced to life imprisonment for murders ordered or executed directly by him. He had been arrested following 30 years on the run on the sidelines of a medical visit to the La Maddalena clinic in Palermo, a renowned establishment where he was treated under an assumed name for colon cancer. Since his arrest, he has been held in a high security prison in the city of L’Aquila, a region east of Rome.
(AFP)
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