The Second Mafia War was a period of conflict involving the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place from 1981 to 1984 and involved thousands of homicides.[2] Sometimes referred to as The Great Mafia War or the Mattanza (Italian for 'Slaughter'), it involved the entire Mafia and radically altered the power balance within the organization. In addition to the violence within the Mafia itself, there was violence against the state, including a campaign of deliberate assassinations of judges, prosecutors, detectives, politicians, activists and other ideological enemies. In turn, the war resulted in a major crackdown against the Mafia, helped by the pentiti, Mafiosi who collaborated with the authorities after losing so many friends and relatives to the fighting. In effect, the conflict helped end the secrecy of the Mafia.
The instigators of the Second Mafia War were the Corleonesi, the Mafia Family from the town of Corleone, although they were helped by a number of other Mafia Families. Hailing from a small rural town, the Corleonesi were often referred to as "the peasants" –i viddani in Sicilian– by other Mafia Families, especially by the powerful urbanized bosses in the capital of Palermo. Things began to change in the 1960s as the Corleonesi grew in power and prestige under the leadership of the brutal and ambitious Luciano Liggio, who had become the Mafia boss of Corleone via the crude but effective method of simply shooting the old one, Michele Navarra.[3]
During the 1970s the Mafia in Sicily resumed its normal illicit business after the Mafia Trials of the 1960s had ended with few convictions. The Corleonesi's primary rivals were Stefano Bontade, Salvatore Inzerillo and Gaetano Badalamenti, bosses of various powerful Palermo Mafia Families. The Sicilian Mafia Commission was re-established in 1970, with Bontade and Badalementi making up two of the three leaders of the Commission. The third was Liggio, although he was represented by Salvatore Riina as Liggio was in hiding on the Italian mainland.[4][5] When Liggio was captured in 1974 and imprisoned for murder, Riina soon took over as boss of the Corleonesi with Bernardo Provenzano.
The Corleonesi began to win over allies amongst other Mafia Families. Amongst those who aligned themselves with the Corleonesi were Palermo bosses Giuseppe Calò (boss of Porta Nuova), Filippo Marchese (boss of Corso Dei Mille) and Rosario Riccobono (boss of Partanna Mondello). In 1978, Riina managed to have Badalamenti expelled from the Commission, accused of having organised the assassination of Francesco Madonia (boss of Vallelunga and ally of the Corleonesi) and subsequently exiled from the Mafia and Sicily altogether. His place was taken by Ciaculli Godfather Michele "The Pope" Greco, who was also aligned with Riina. Greco, like Calò, Marchese and Riccobono, kept his alliance secret from the likes of Bontade and Inzerillo.
It was also in 1978 that Riina arranged for the murders of Giuseppe Di Cristina and Giuseppe Calderone, bosses of Riesi and Catania respectively. Both men were allies of Bontade and Inzerillo; their successors were allies of Riina, who sponsored them. Gradually, the bosses of Palermo and their men were isolated.
The Great Mafia War
On April 23, 1981, Bontade was machine-gunned to death while he was returning home in his car in Palermo by Giuseppe Greco, a Corleonesi killer, who shot him with an AK-47 from a Honda motorbike driven by Giuseppe Lucchese and a few weeks later, on May 11, Inzerillo was killed in a hail of bullets outside his lover house by a team of hitmen armed with Kalashnikov rifles. Various relatives and associates of the pair were subsequently killed or vanished without trace, including Inzerillo's teenage son, who was brutally tortured and killed with a Machete for vowing to avenge his murdered father. On September 29 of the same year, Calogero Pizzuto, another close ally of Bontade and Inzerillo, was shot dead in a crowded bar alongside two innocent bystanders. Badalamenti only managed to survive by fleeing Sicily after the Corleonesi had him expelled in the late 1970s.
More and more killings took place over the next two years. On November 30, 1982, twelve Mafiosi were murdered in Palermo in twelve separate incidents. The murders extended across the Atlantic, with one of Inzerillo's brothers being found dead in New Jersey after fleeing to the U.S. The dismembered body of one of Badalamenti's nephews turned up in a field in Germany. Amongst the many hitmen at the disposal of the Corleonesi and their allied clans was Giuseppe Greco from Ciaculli. He was a member of the Ciaculli clan headed by his uncle, Michele "The Pope" Greco, but was primarily at the disposal of Riina. An ace shot with an AK-47, Giuseppe Greco is suspected of killing around eighty people on behalf of Riina, including Bontade and Inzerillo. He led a "death squad" of hitmen, which included Mario Prestifilippo, Antonino Madonia, Giuseppe Lucchese, Calogero Ganci, Giuseppe Giacomo Gambino, Vincenzo Puccio, Gaetano Carollo, and Filippo Marchese, boss of Corso Dei Mille, he also took an active part in the squad, his young nephew, Giuseppe Marchese, who was caught on January 15, 1982 at the age of 18 years old.
From 1981 to 1984 there were at least 400 Mafia killings in Palermo and as many again across Sicily.[6] In addition there were at least 160 cases of Mafiosi and their associates who vanished, victims of what is known as lupara bianca (Sicilian for "White Shotgun"), whereby the body is completely destroyed or buried so that it is never found. The Corleonesi and their allies were the overwhelming victors in the war, suffering few casualties themselves. One of the reasons was their natural secrecy. Whilst some Mafiosi lived quite publicly, putting on a persona of respectability, Riina, Provenzano, Leoluca Bagarella and their many killers spent years as fugitives, often rarely seen by fellow Mafiosi, let alone the public.
The fact that many bosses aligned themselves with the Corleonesi but without telling other mafiosi also aided the campaign in that these allies continued to have the misplaced trust of the Corleonesi's enemies. A prime example took place in late May, whereby 6 members of Bontade and Inzerillo's Mafia Families were invited to a meeting with one of their supposed friends. This 'friend' had, in fact, allied himself with the Corleonesi and the 6 who went along were vanished among them Emanuele D'Agostino, who sought refuge with one of Bontade's oldest allies, Rosario Riccobono. Riccobono had also secretly allied himself with the Corleonesi, and D'Agostino and his son were likewise eliminated. The only one of the six men to survive was Salvatore Contorno, who subsequently survived a murder attempt and went into hiding before he was caught by the police in March 1982.
While on the run, Contorno sent anonymous letters to the police, giving up vital information about the war. This was invaluable to the authorities, who – like the losing clans – had little idea as to what exactly was going on with all the bloodshed. Mafiosi were obviously very secretive normally, and at the time of the Second Mafia War the authorities were at a loss to understand the exact allegiances and motives of the war. For example, when Bontade was murdered, for a short while, the police thought he had been killed as an act of treachery by Inzerillo, until he himself was killed. Deliberate disinformation was also employed by the Corleonesi. When Inzerillo died he was wanted for the murder three years previously of Giuseppe Di Cristina, but in fact the Corleonesi had murdered Di Cristina, deliberately doing so on Inzerillo's territory in order to frame him.
Whilst the Sicilian Mafia has generally been more inclined to kill authority figures than their American counterparts, this is still usually only as a last resort. The Corleonesi and their allies, however, started a specific campaign of assassination of state figures. Amongst the victims (known as "excellent cadavers") were police chiefsEmanuele Basile and Boris Giuliano, magistratesRocco Chinnici and Cesare Terranova, and politicians Piersanti Mattarella and Pio La Torre. In one of the most brazen hits conducted by the Mafia, general of the Italian Army Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, who was serving as Palermo's prefect at that time, was killed together with his wife and police escort Domenico Russo. They were shot upon by motorcycle-riding gunmen carrying AK-47s led by Giuseppe Greco.[7] Nonetheless a team of antimafia prosecutors, including Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino and Antonino Caponetto, laboured to orchestrate a concerted effort to combat the Mafia and the rising tide of violence, as well as the flow of heroin whose control was behind the war. The war against the Mafia resulted in the Maxi Trial of 1986, whereby hundreds of Mafiosi were convicted of a long litany of crimes.
Some of the investigations and crimes had begun in the 1970s but a bulk of the charges related to the Second Mafia War. Many of the defendants, such as Riina and Provenzano, were convicted in absentia as they were still fugitives at the time of the trial. The trial was significant as several Mafiosi on the losing side of the war, such as Salvatore Contorno and Tommaso Buscetta, who became known as pentiti, took the stand and testified against their former fellow Mafiosi. In February 1980, Buscetta had fled to Brazil to escape the brewing Second Mafia War instigated by Salvatore Riina.[8] On September 11, 1982, Buscetta's two sons from his first wife, Benedetto and Antonio, disappeared, never to be found again, which prompted his collaboration with Italian authorities.[9] This was followed by the deaths of his brother Vincenzo, son-in-law Giuseppe Genova, brother-in-law Pietro and four of his nephews, Domenico and Benedetto Buscetta, and Orazio and Antonio D 'Amico.[10][11] The war subsequently led to the deaths of many of Buscetta's allies, including Stefano Bontade. Buscetta was arrested in Sao Paulo, Brazil once again on October 23, 1983.[12] He was extradited to Italy on June 28, 1984,[13] where he attempted suicide by ingestion of barbiturates;[14] when that failed, he decided that he was utterly disillusioned with the Mafia.[15] Buscetta asked to talk to Falcone, and began his life as an informant, referred to as a pentito.[16] The crackdown of the anti-mafia resulted in retaliative bombings and shootings.[17]
Carabinieri captains Emanuele Basile, Mario D'Aleo, Giuseppe Bommarito and Pietro Morici, as well as Marshal Giuliano Guazzelli, were either gunned down or blown up.[18][19] Falcone himself together with his wife and three police escorts were killed in the 1992 Capaci bombing. Two months later, the Via D'Amelio bombing killed another anti-mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino and five policemen. The Circonvallazione massacre also killed three carabinieri escorts, Salvatore Raiti, Silvano Franzolin and Luigi Di Barca. Police Inspector Giovanni Lizzio was also killed in the war.
By the end of 1982 the Corleonesi and their allies were all but triumphant, with many of the surviving members of the old clans surrendering and switching their allegiance to the victors. The killing did not end, though. The Corleonesi decided to dispose of key allies, starting with Rosario Riccobono, who was killed along with over twenty of his associates and friends in late 1982, and swiftly followed by Filippo Marchese, who was strangled and dissolved in acid like many of those who had died at his hands.
The violence dragged on into the latter half of the 1980s as a result of the Corleonesi's treachery and desire to ensure their hegemony throughout the Mafia. Riccobono and Marchese were already eliminated by the start of 1983. Further murders followed, primarily involving Ciaculli killers Giuseppe Greco, Mario Prestifilippo and Vincenzo Puccio, and Agostino Marino Mannoia, who had switched sides from Bontade's to Riina's. These four men were invaluable to the Corleonesi throughout the first half of the 1980s, notching up literally hundreds of murders between them, but between 1985 and 1989 they were all murdered on the orders of the Corleonesi bosses, who saw them as having outlived their usefulness and/or perceived them as too ambitious and therefore a threat. Puccio's two brothers, also Mafiosi, were likewise killed.
Once again, the authorities were largely unaware of these new events in the closed world of the Mafia until they were confirmed by Francesco Marino Mannoia (brother of Agostino Marino Mannoia) in October 1989. He had been in prison since 1985 for trafficking heroin but had been kept up to date on incidents by Agostino, who visited him regularly. According to Francesco Mannoia, his brother, Vincenzo Puccio and Puccio's two brothers were killed after Riina discovered they had been plotting to overthrow him. Giuseppe Greco and Mario Prestifilippo were apparently slain because they became too ambitious.
Mannoia's information was confirmed in 1992 by several more pentiti, including Gaspare Mutolo, Giuseppe Marchese, and Leonardo Messina. Unlike the pentiti of the mid-1980s, these men were on the winning side of the Second Mafia War, former allies of the Corleonesi. They all complained of the same thing, that Riina and the other bosses of Corleone abandoned or eliminated their allies once they were of no further use or perceived as a potential threat. It seemed the only way to survive being an ally of Riina was to do exactly as he said. In an interview with Borsellino in 1992, Messina summed this up by stating that the Corleonesi bosses "used us to get rid of the old bosses, then they got rid of all those who raised their heads, like Giuseppe Greco, "the Shoe", Mario Prestifilippo and [Vincenzo] Puccio...all that's left are men without character, who are their puppets."[20]
Result
The primary result of the Second Mafia War was the victory of the Corleonesi and its bosses, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. By the mid-1980s they were effectively in charge of much of the Mafia and by the end of the decade, after many of their allies were eliminated or in prison, they effectively had a hegemony over the criminal organization.
This was summed up by Salvatore Contorno who, when asked at the Maxi Trial about the "winners" and "losers" of the Second Mafia War, declared: "The winning and losing clans don't exist, because the losers don't exist. The Corleonesi, killed them all."[21]
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. His actual surname was Bontate. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the Principe di Villagrazia − the area of Palermo he controlled − and Il Falco. He had links with several powerful politicians in Sicily, and with prime minister Giulio Andreotti. In 1981 he was killed by the rival faction within Cosa Nostra, the Corleonesi. His death sparked a brutal Mafia War that left several hundred mafiosi dead.
Salvatore Inzerillo was an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio. He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family. A prolific heroin trafficker, he was killed in May 1981 by a firing squad of the Corleonesi family led by Totò Riina during the Second Mafia War who opposed the established Palermo Mafia families of which Inzerillo was one of the main proponents.
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial against the Sicilian Mafia that took place in Palermo, Sicily. The trial lasted from 10 February 1986 to 30 January 1992, and was held in a bunker-style courthouse specially constructed for this purpose inside the walls of the Ucciardone prison.
Filippo Marchese was a leading figure in the Sicilian Mafia and a hitman suspected of dozens of homicides. Marchese was one of the most feared killers working for mafia boss Vincenzo Chiaracane, closely related to the Giuseppe Greco family which was in control of the Ciaculli neighbourhood of Palermo.
Michele Greco was a member of the Sicilian Mafia and a convicted murderer. Greco died in prison while serving multiple life sentences. His nickname was Il Papa due to his ability to mediate between different Mafia families. Greco was the head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission.
Vincenzo Puccio was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was from Palermo and joined the Ciaculli Mafia family sometime in the late 1970s, although like many other members of that particular family he operated a great deal under the orders of the Corleonesi.
Rosario Riccobono was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of Partanna Mondello, a suburb of Palermo, his native city. In 1974 he became a member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission. During the 1970s Riccobono was one of the most influential members of the Commission, and the Cosa Nostra's king of the drug trafficking.
Francesco Marino Mannoia is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who became a pentito in 1989. His nickname was Mozzarella. He is considered to be one of the most reliable government witnesses against the Mafia. Antimafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, who was first to interrogate him, recalled Marino Mannoia as an intelligent and reliable witness.
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.
Giuseppe Di Cristina was a powerful mafioso from Riesi in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, southern Italy. Di Cristina, nicknamed “la tigre’’, was born into a traditional Mafia family, his father Francesco Di Cristina and his grandfather were men of honour as well.
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 “Pippo” Calderone was an influential Sicilian mafioso from Catania, eventually becoming the capo of the Catania Mafia family.
Giuseppe Marchese is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia, who turned state witness (pentito). Giuseppe Pino Marchese was born in Palermo in a family with long-standing ties to the Mafia. His father Vincenzo and his uncle Filippo Marchese were both members of Cosa Nostra.
Antonino "Nino" Rotolo is a Sicilian Mafia boss from the Pagliarelli area in Palermo that traditionally was under the control of the Motisi Mafia family. Rotolo was the underboss of Matteo Motisi, but according to some pentiti he was the de facto leader representing the mandamento on the Sicilian Mafia Commission. In 2006, the police deduced that Rotolo — Number 25 in the numbered code of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano — had become a key figure in Cosa Nostra's hierarchy.
Il Capo dei Capi is an Italian biographical crime drama miniseries which debuted on Canale 5 between October and November 2007. It tells the story of Salvatore Riina, alias Totò u Curtu, a mafioso boss from Corleone, Sicily. Riina is played by Palermo-born actor, Claudio Gioè, and the series was directed by Alexis Sweet and Enzo Monteleone. The series is inspired from the eponymous book-inquiry of Giuseppe D'Avanzo and Attilio Bolzoni. It was broadcast in the UK in the spring of 2013 on the Sky Arts channel, retitled Corleone and split into 12 one-hour episodes.
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 and a major crackdown by the authorities. He was also known by the nicknames la belva and il capo dei capi.
Giuseppe Greco was a hitman and high-ranking member of the Sicilian Mafia. A number of sources refer to him exclusively as Pino Greco, although Giuseppe was his Christian name; Pino is a frequent abbreviation of the name Giuseppe.
Salvatore Scaglione was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Noce, a neighborhood in central Palermo, since the early 1970s. In 1974, he became a member of the reconstructed Sicilian Mafia Commission. His nickname was "U Pugilista", referring to the fact he was involved in professional boxing in his youth. Together with Stefano Bontade, Salvatore Inzerillo and Rosario Riccobono, he was considered one of the main rivals of the Corleonesi Mafia clan of Salvatore Riina during the Second Mafia War in Palermo. He was killed by the Corleonesi on 30 November 1982.
The Galatolo Mafia clan was a criminal family originating from the Acquasanta neighborhood of Palermo. They are one of the longest-running Mafia clans in the city, having held important positions throughout most of the 20th century and beyond and even coming to rule the entire Resuttana mandamento in the early 21st century.
Sterling, Claire (1990). Octopus. How the long reach of the Sicilian Mafia controls the global narcotics trade, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN0-671-73402-4
Stille, Alexander (1995). Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN0-224-03761-7.
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