The Capaci bombing (Italian: Strage di Capaci) was a terror attack[2] by the Sicilian Mafia that took place on 23 May 1992 on Highway A29, close to the junction of Capaci, Sicily. It killed magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, and three police escort agents, Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo and Antonio Montinaro; agents Paolo Capuzza, Angelo Corbo, Gaspare Bravo and Giuseppe Costanza survived.
Salvatore Cancemi, who later turned pentito, described the Mafia's victory celebration that followed the Capaci bombing; Totò Riina ordered champagne while they toasted.[3]Santino Di Matteo, who also later turned pentito, revealed all the details of the assassination: who tunnelled beneath the motorway, who packed the 13 drums with TNT and Semtex, who hauled them into place on a skateboard, and who pressed the remote-control button to trigger the bomb.[4]
Preparation
Memorial of Giovanni Falcone in Capaci
Falcone's killing was decided at meetings of the Sicilian Mafia Commission between September and December 1991, and orchestrated by boss Salvatore Riina, in which other targets were also identified.[5] Following the judgment of the Supreme Court of Cassation confirming the claims of the Maxi Trial (30 January 1992),[6] the Sicilian Mafia decided to start the attacks on political figures.
According to imprisoned ex-mafia informant Maurizio Avola, boss John Gotti of the powerful New York mafia Gambino family sent an explosives expert to train the Corleonesi Mafia clan killers in the use of explosives.[10][11]
Brusca, La Barbera, Di Matteo, Ferrante, Troia, Biondino and Rampulla repeatedly experimented with the functioning of the electrical devices that had been procured by Rampulla to be used for the explosion.[7] They also tested an electrical appliance at the agreed-upon site on the highway, and cut tree branches that blocked the view of the highway.[9] On the evening of 8 May, Brusca, Barbera, Gioè, Troia and Rampulla arranged 13 barrels loaded with about 400kilograms of explosives onto a skateboard placed in a drainage tunnel under the highway.[9] In the middle of May, Raffaele Ganci, his sons Domenico and Calogero and his nephew Antonino Galliano took care of monitoring the movements of the Fiat Cromas which carried Falcone and his entourage returning from Rome to Palermo.[9]
Bombing
On 23 May, Domenico Ganci first heard from Ferrante and La Barbera that a Fiat Croma had left for Falcone.[8] Ferrante and Biondo, who were stationed near Punta Raisi Airport, later saw the cars from the airport and warned La Barbera that Falcone had arrived.[8][9] La Barbera followed Falcone's procession on a road parallel to Highway A29, staying in contact by telephone for 3–4 minutes with Gioè, who was stationed with Brusca on the hills above Capaci adjacent to the detonation site on the highway.[8][9] At the sight of the procession, Brusca activated the remote control that caused the explosion. The first car was hit by the full force of the explosion and thrown from the road surface into a orchard of olive trees a few tens of meters away, instantly killing agents Antonio Montinaro, Vito Schifani and Rocco Dicillo.[12] The second car, carrying Falcone and his wife, crashed against the concrete wall and the debris, fatally ejecting Falcone and his wife, who were not wearing seat belts, through the windscreen.[12]
Thousands gathered at the Church of Saint Dominic for the funerals which were broadcast live on national TV. All regular television programs were suspended. Parliament declared a day of mourning.[13] Falcone's colleague Paolo Borsellino was killed 57 days later, along with five police officers: Agostino Catalano, Walter Cosina, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, and Claudio Traina, in the Via D'Amelio bombing.[14]
Investigations
In 1993, the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia managed to locate and intercept Antonino Gioè, Santino Di Matteo and Gioacchino La Barbera, who were heard on phone calls referencing the Capaci bombing.[15] After being arrested, Gioè committed suicide in his cell, while Di Matteo and La Barbera decided to cooperate with the government, revealing the names of the other executors of the massacre. To force Di Matteo to retract his statements, Giovanni Brusca, Leoluca Bagarella, Giuseppe Graviano and Matteo Messina Denaro decided to abduct his son Giuseppe Di Matteo, who was brutally strangled and dissolved in acid after 779 days of being held hostage.[16] Despite this, Di Matteo continued to cooperate with justice.[17]
In 1997, the Corte d'Assise of Caltanissetta sentenced at first instance to life imprisonment: Salvatore Riina, Peter Aglieri, Bernardo Brusca, Leoluca Bagarella, Raphael and Domenico Ganci, John Battaglia, Salvatore Biondino, Salvatore Biondo, Giuseppe Calò, Philip and Joseph Gravano, Michelangelo La Barbera, Salvatore and Giuseppe Montalto, Matteo Motisi, Pietro Rampulla, Bernardo Provenzano, Benedetto Spera, Antonino Troia, Benedetto Santapaola and Giuseppe Madonia while Mariano Agate, Giuseppe Lucchese, Salvatore Sbeglia, Giusto Sciarrabba, Salvatore Buscemi, Giuseppe Farinella were acquitted, Antonino Giuffrè, Francesco Madonia and Giuseppe Agrigento.[9][18] Also sentenced were Giovanni Brusca (26 years), Salvatore Cancemi (21 years), Giovanbattista Ferrante (17 years), Gioacchino La Barbera (15 years and two months), Santino Di Matteo and Calogero Ganci (15 years).[9][19] In April 2000, the Court of Appeal of Caltanissetta upheld all the convictions and acquittals, but also sentenced to life imprisonment, Salvatore Buscemi, Francesco Madonia, Antonino Giuffrè, Mariano Agate and Giuseppe Farinella.[20]
In May 2002, the Court of Cassation annulled the convictions at Court of Appeal of Catania, of Pietro Aglieri, Salvatore Buscemi, Giuseppe Calò, Giuseppe Farinella, Antonino Giuffrè, Francesco Madonia, Giuseppe Madonia, Giuseppe and Salvatore Montalto, Matteo Motisi and Benedetto Spera.[21] In July 2003 a part of the process for the Capaci bombing and the massacre of Via d'Amelio were brought together in one trial because they had been accused in common:[22] in April 2006 the Court of Appeal of Catania condemned twelve people, as they were deemed to be mandated by both massacres: Giuseppe Montalto, Salvatore Montalto, Giuseppe Farinella, Salvatore Buscemi, Benedetto Spera, Giuseppe Madonia, Carlo Greco, Stefano Ganci, Antonino Giuffrè, Pietro Aglieri, Benedetto Santapaola and Mariano Agate; Giuseppe Lucchese was acquitted.[23]
On 20 October 2020, Messina Denaro was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Corte d'Assise for having been one of the instigators of the Capaci bombing.[24] After his capture in January 2023,[25] the sentence was confirmed on 18 July 2023.[26]
Bernardo Provenzano was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia clan known as the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone, and de facto the boss of bosses. His nickname was Binnu u tratturi because, in the words of one informant, "he mows people down". Another nickname was il ragioniere, due to his apparently subtle and low-key approach to running his crime empire, at least in contrast to some of his more violent predecessors.
Giovanni Brusca is an Italian mobster and former member of the Corleonesi clan of the Sicilian Mafia. He played a major role in the 1992 murders of Antimafia Commission prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and businessman Ignazio Salvo, and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders. Brusca had been sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for Mafia association and multiple murder. He was captured in 1996, turned pentito and his sentence reduced to twenty-six years in prison. In 2021, Brusca was released from prison.
Rocco Chinnici was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate killed by the Sicilian Mafia.
Leoluca Bagarella is an Italian criminal and member of the Sicilian Mafia. He is from the town of Corleone. Following Salvatore Riina's arrest in early 1993, Bagarella became the head of the stragist strategy faction, opposing another faction commanded by the successor designate Bernardo Provenzano, creating a real rift in Cosa Nostra. Bagarella was captured in 1995, having been a fugitive for four years, and sentenced to life imprisonment for Mafia association and multiple murders.
Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò is an Italian mobster and member of the Sicilian Mafia in Porta Nuova. He was referred to as the cassiere di Cosa Nostra because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering. He was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment as part of the 1986/87 Maxi Trial. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989 for organising the 1984 Train 904 bombing and was given several further life sentences between 1995 and 2002. He was also charged with ordering the murder of Roberto Calvi – nicknamed il banchiere di Dio – of the Banco Ambrosiano in 1982, but was acquitted in 2007 due to "insufficient evidence" in a surprise verdict.
Matteo Messina Denaro, also known as Diabolik, was a Sicilian Mafia boss from Castelvetrano. He was considered to be one of the new leaders of the Sicilian mob after the arrests of Bernardo Provenzano on 11 April 2006 and Salvatore Lo Piccolo in November 2007. The son of a Mafia boss, Denaro became known nationally on 12 April 2001 when the magazine L'Espresso put him on the cover with the headline: Ecco il nuovo capo della Mafia.
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Sicilian Mafia members who decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra. It is composed of representatives of a mandamento who are called capo mandamento or rappresentante. The Commission is not a central government of the Mafia, but a representative mechanism for consultation of independent Mafia families who decide by consensus. Its primary role is to keep the use of violence among families within limits tolerable to the public and political authorities.
Salvatore Cancemi was an Italian mobster and member of the Sicilian Mafia from Palermo. He is the first member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission that turned himself in voluntarily to become a pentito, a collaborator with the Italian judicial authorities. Cancemi made controversial allegations about the collusion of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his right-hand man Marcello Dell'Utri with the Mafia.
The Corleonesi Mafia clan was a faction within the Corleone family of the Sicilian Mafia, formed in the 1970s. Notable leaders included Luciano Leggio, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, and Leoluca Bagarella.
Giuseppe Graviano is an Italian mafioso from the Brancaccio quarter in Palermo. He also was one the men of the death squad that murdered Salvatore Contorno's relatives. He is currently serving several life sentences. He and his three siblings became members of the Sicilian Mafia Commission for the Brancaccio-Ciaculli mandamento, substituting Giuseppe Lucchese who was in prison.
Francesco "Ciccio" Madonia was the Mafia boss of the San Lorenzo-Pallavicino area in Palermo. In 1978 he became a member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission.
Santino Di Matteo, also known as Mezzanasca, is an Italian former member of the Sicilian Mafia from the town of Altofonte in the province of Palermo, Sicily, Italy.
Gioacchino La Barbera is a member of the Mafia who became a pentito. He was one of the key witnesses in the trial against the killers of Antimafia judge Giovanni Falcone.
Salvatore Riina, called Totò, was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s with the assassinations of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, resulting in widespread public outcry, legal change and a major crackdown by the authorities. He was also known by the nicknames la belva and il capo dei capi.
The via D'Amelio bombing was a terrorist attack by the Sicilian Mafia, which took place in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, on 19 July 1992. It killed Paolo Borsellino, the anti-Mafia Italian magistrate, and five members of his police escort: Agostino Catalano, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, Walter Eddie Cosina, and Claudio Traina.
The term State-Mafia Pact describes an alleged series of negotiations between important Italian government officials and Cosa Nostra members that began after the period of the 1992 and 1993 terror attacks by the Sicilian Mafia with the aim to reach a deal to stop the attacks; according to other sources and hypotheses, it began even earlier. In summary, the supposed cornerstone of the deal was an end to "the Massacre Season" in return for a reduction in the detention measures provided for Italy's Article 41-bis prison regime. 41-bis was the law by which the Antimafia pool led by Giovanni Falcone had condemned hundreds of mafia members to the "hard prison regime". The negotiation hypothesis has been the subject of long investigations, both by the courts and in the media. In 2021, the Court of Appeal of Palermo acquitted a close associate of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, while upholding the sentences of the mafia bosses. This ruling was confirmed by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation in 2023.
The Circonvallazione massacre, in Italian Strage della Circonvallazione, was a Cosa Nostra attack that took place on June 16, 1982 on the Palermo ring road. The attack was directed against Catanese boss Alfio Ferlito, who was transferred from Enna to the Trapani jail, and died with the three escort carabinieri and the 22-year-old Giuseppe Di Lavore, the driver of the private company that had the transportation of prisoners, who had replaced his father. The mandators of this massacre were Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, in favor to Nitto Santapaola, who was in a year-long war with Ferlito for the predominance on the city of Catania territory.
The Graviano family is a Sicilian Mafia clan, composed of four mafioso siblings: Benedetto, Filippo, Giuseppe and Nunzia. Their father was Michele Graviano, uomo d'onore that belonged to the Brancaccio Mafia family and was murdered by Gaetano Grado in 1982.
References
↑ The National Institute of Geophysics communicated that according to the findings of the Monte Cammarata (AG) station, determined by the temporal analysis of the recorded signals, it was possible to establish the exact moment of the explosion.
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