Italian judge (1939?1992)
Giovanni Falcone
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Born
| (
1939-05-18
)
18 May 1939
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Died
| 23 May 1992
(1992-05-23)
(aged 53)
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Cause of death
| Assassinated by the
Sicilian Mafia
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Nationality
| Italian
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Alma mater
| University of Palermo
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Occupation
| Magistrate
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Known for
| Investigations into the Mafia
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Spouse
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Giovanni Falcone
(
Italian:
[d?o?vanni
fal?koːne]
; 18 May 1939 ? 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting
magistrate
.
[1]
[2]
From his office in the Palace of Justice in
Palermo
,
Sicily
, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the
Sicilian Mafia
. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the
Maxi Trial
in 1986?1987, on 23 May 1992, Falcone was assassinated by the
Corleonesi Mafia
in the
Capaci bombing
, on the
A29 motorway
near the town of
Capaci
.
His life parallels that of his close friend
Paolo Borsellino
. They both spent their early years in the same neighbourhood in Palermo. Though many of their childhood friends grew up in an environment in which the Mafia had a strong presence, both men fought against organised crime as prosecuting magistrates.
[3]
They were both killed in 1992, a few months apart. In recognition of their tireless effort and sacrifice during the anti-mafia trials, they were both awarded the
Gold Medal for Civil Valor
and were acknowledged as martyrs of the
Catholic Church
. They were also named as heroes of the last 60 years in the 13 November 2006 issue of
Time
.
[4]
Early life
[
edit
]
Falcone was born in 1939 to a middle-class family in the Via Castrofilippo near the seaport district
La Kalsa
, a neighbourhood of central Palermo that suffered extensive destruction by aerial attacks during the
Allied invasion of Sicily
in 1943. His father, Arturo Falcone, the director of a provincial chemical laboratory, was married to Luisa Bentivegna. Giovanni had two older sisters, Anna and Maria.
[3]
[5]
Falcone's parents emphasised the importance of hard work, bravery and patriotism; he later said they 'expected the maximum' from him. At school Falcone would get into fights with larger children if he thought his friends were being picked on.
[6]
The Mafia was present in the area but quiescent;
Tommaso Spadaro
, a boy with whom he played ping-pong in the neighbourhood
Catholic Action
recreation centre, would later become a notorious Mafia smuggler and killer, but mafiosi were not a major presence in his childhood. As boys, Falcone and Borsellino, who were born in the same neighbourhood, played soccer together on the Piazza Magione. Both had classmates who ended up as mafiosi.
[3]
[7]
[8]
Falcone grew up at a time when
Sicilians
did not acknowledge the existence of the Mafia as a coherent organised group; assertions to the contrary by other Italians were often seen as 'attacks from the north'.
[6]
After a classical education, Falcone studied law at the
University of Palermo
following a brief period of study at
Livorno's naval academy
. Falcone and Borsellino met again at Palermo University. While Falcone drifted away from his parents' middle-class
conservative Catholicism
towards
communism
, Borsellino was religious and conservative; in his youth, he had been a member of the
Fronte Universitario d'Azione Nazionale
[
it
]
(FUAN), a right-wing university organisation affiliated with the neo-fascist MSI (
Movimento Sociale Italiano
). However, neither ever joined a political party, and although the ideologies of their political movements were diametrically opposed, they shared a history of opposing the Mafia. Their different political leanings did not thwart their friendship. Falcone wanted a
naval career
but his father thought him too independent-minded for the armed forces, and sent him to study law.
[3]
[6]
After graduating in 1961, Falcone began to practice law before being appointed a judge in 1964. Falcone eventually gravitated toward
penal law
after serving as a district magistrate. He was assigned to the
prosecutor's office
in
Trapani
and
Marsala
, and then in 1978 to the bankruptcy court in Palermo.
[7]
[9]
First trial against the Mafia
[
edit
]
In early 1980, Falcone joined the ‘Office of Instruction’ (Ufficio istruzione), the investigative branch of the Prosecution Office of Palermo. He started to work at a particularly tense moment (→
'Years of Lead'
). Judge
Cesare Terranova
, a former parliamentary deputy and Antimafia reformer who had been the main prosecutor of the Mafia in the 1960s, was to have headed this office, but he was killed on 25 September 1979. Only two months earlier, on 21 July 1979,
Boris Giuliano
had been assassinated; he headed the police investigation squad investigating heroin trafficking by the Mafia headed by
Rosario Spatola
and
Salvatore Inzerillo
. Taking Terranova's place was
Rocco Chinnici
, who was murdered by the Mafia in July 1983.
[7]
[10]
On 5 May 1980, Giuliano's successor in investigating the heroin network, Carabinieri captain
Emanuele Basile
, was killed. The next day, the prosecuting judge
Gaetano Costa
signed 55 arrest warrants against the heroin-trafficking network of the Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino clan. From Sicily, heroin was moved to the
Gambino crime family
in New York, who were related to the Inzerillos. Chinnici appointed Falcone to investigate the case, one of the biggest Antimafia operations in more than a decade.
[11]
Costa signed the indictments after virtually all of the other prosecutors in his office had declined to do so ? a fact that leaked out of the office and eventually cost him his life: he was murdered on 6 August 1980, on the orders of Inzerillo.
[7]
Falcone was given bodyguards the next day.
[12]
In this tense atmosphere, Falcone introduced an innovative investigative technique in the Spatola investigation, seizing bank records to follow "the money trail" created by heroin deals to build his case, applying the skills he had learned unravelling bankruptcies.
[7]
He was probably among the first Sicilian magistrates to establish working relationships with colleagues from other countries, thus developing an early understanding of the global dimensions of heroin trafficking, while enhancing the meagre investigative resources of his office.
[7]
A colleague was astonished to discover that Falcone, who had no computers at his disposal, was personally recording the details listed on printouts of transactions that he had requisitioned from every bank in Palermo province.
[13]
He learned that the chemists of the
French Connection
had moved clandestine labs for refining heroin from
Marseille
to Sicily. At the end of 1980, he visited the United States and started to work with the
U.S. Justice Department
, resulting in "some of the biggest international law enforcement operations in history", such as the
Pizza Connection
. The inquiries extended to Turkey, an important stopover on the route of
morphine
base; to Switzerland, where bank secrecy laws facilitated
money laundering
; and to Naples, where
cigarette smuggling
rings were being reconfigured as heroin operations.
[7]
At the end of 1981, Falcone finalised the Spatola case for trial, which enabled the prosecution to win 74 convictions, based on Falcone's "web of solid evidence, bank and travel records, seized heroin shipments, fingerprint and handwriting analyses, wiretapped conversations and firsthand testimony" that proved that "Sicily had replaced France as the principal gateway for refining and exporting heroin to the United States".
[7]
[14]
Antimafia pool
[
edit
]
Falcone was plagued by a chronic lack of resources in his capacity as magistrate. A law to create a new offence of Mafia conspiracy and to confiscate Mafia assets was introduced by
Pio La Torre
, but it had been stalled in parliament for two years before La Torre was murdered on 30 April 1982. In May 1982, the Italian government sent
Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa
, a general of the Italian
Carabinieri
, to Sicily with orders to crush the Mafia. However, not long after arriving, on 3 September 1982, the General was gunned down in the city centre, his young wife by his side. Sicilians rose up in outrage. Outside the church, the politicians who attended were jeered and spat on, and blamed by Sicilians for tolerating the Mafia for so long. In response, the Italian government finally offered investigators the backing they needed, and
Pio La Torre
's law was passed 10 days later.
[15]
Falcone's responsibilities as a magistrate put tremendous strain on his personal life. In May 1986, he married his fiancee,
Francesca Morvillo
; Falcone had Mayor
Leoluca Orlando
himself conduct the private ceremony.
[16]
He became part of Palermo's informal
Antimafia Pool
, created by Judge
Rocco Chinnici
. This was a group of investigating magistrates who closely worked together sharing information and developing new investigative and prosecutorial strategies. Most important, they assumed collective responsibility for carrying Mafia prosecutions forward: all the members of the pool signed prosecutorial orders to avoid exposing any one of them to particular risk, such as the one that had cost judge Gaetano Costa his life. Along with Falcone, the group included
Paolo Borsellino
,
Giuseppe Di Lell
[
it
]
and
Leonardo Guarnotta
[
it
]
.
[7]
Maxi Trial
[
edit
]
The Antimafia pool laid the groundwork for the
Maxi Trial
against the
Sicilian Mafia
at the preliminary investigative phase. Following Chinnici's murder in July 1983,
Antonino Caponnetto
headed the pool. Falcone's friend Antonio Cassara (who headed the police squad hunting fugitives) was murdered in 1985. Falcone led the prosecution for the trial, which began 10 February 1986, and ended on 16 December 1987. Of the 475 defendants?both those present and those tried
in absentia
?338 were convicted. A total of 2,665 years of prison sentences was shared out between the guilty, not including the
life sentences
handed to the 19 leading Mafia bosses and killers, including
Michele Greco
,
Giuseppe Marchese
and?
in absentia
?
Salvatore Riina
,
Giuseppe Lucchese
and
Bernardo Provenzano
.
[17]
One of the most important factors in the trial was the testimony of
Tommaso Buscetta
, the first-ever Sicilian Mafiosi boss to become an informant (
pentito
). His assertion that the Mafia was not a collection of separate gangs but a single organisation led some magistrates and detectives to question his credibility. After an interview, Falcone became convinced that Buscetta was genuine and treated him with respect. Buscetta's key revelation was that a governing council, known as the
Commission
or
Cupula
headed a collective structure, thereby establishing that the top tier of Mafia members were complicit in all the organisation's crimes. This premise became known as the Buscetta theorem.
[18]
Setback
[
edit
]
When Falcone's record of success and high profile led to resentment from some quarters, he was not given the job he coveted as chief prosecutor in Palermo. The new incumbent did not accept that the hierarchical Mafia structure revealed by the Maxi Trial actually existed, and he attempted to force Falcone to work on cases of wife beating and car theft. Falcone became so frustrated that he spoke of resigning. During 1988 Falcone collaborated with
Rudolph Giuliani
, at the time
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
, in operations against the
Gambino
and
Inzerillo
families. Rumours impugning his integrity deeply troubled Falcone during this period.
[19]
On 20 June 1989, a sack filled with dynamite sticks was discovered near a beach house Falcone had rented in the town of
Addaura
by policeman Nino Agostino. Although Falcone had been threatened before, this failed attempt bothered him to the extreme because it had all the signs of an inside job. At the time, he was meeting Swiss prosecutors
Carla Del Ponte
and
Claudio Lehman
from Lugano who were helping to investigate the Mafia's financial holdings in Switzerland. Falcone believed that the assassination attempt not only involved the Mafia but some people in government as well.
[20]
During the investigations into the money laundering networks of the Mafia, it became clear that former Palermo police chief
Bruno Contrada
, who had moved to the intelligence service
SISDE
, had warned a suspect about his impending arrest so that he could escape in time.
[21]
[22]
Falcone received an effusive congratulatory phone call from
Giulio Andreotti
after the narrow escape. Falcone privately thought it odd that Andreotti, who he had never spoken to, would suddenly contact him, and he mused about the significance of the incident to a friend.
[23]
Unknown to Falcone the efforts to kill him were suspended while the Maxi trial verdicts went through the appeals process that had often set convicted Mafia members free.
[24]
Later investigations into the murders of two police officers, Antonino Agostino and Emanuele Piazza, who worked for the secret service, revealed that they had secretly defused the bombs that had been placed by a Mafia commando aided by other secret service men. Agostino and his wife were killed on 5 August 1989 outside their home, and Piazza on 15 March 1990.
[22]
[25]
Transfer to Rome
[
edit
]
Exhausted and frustrated by the antagonism in Palermo, Falcone accepted a post in the Ministry of Justice in Rome offered to him by
Claudio Martelli
, the new minister of Justice in a new government of
Giulio Andreotti
in March 1991. The transfer was initially seen as a capitulation by Falcone, but he himself thought of it as a tactical move to better fight the Mafia. His first action was to prepare a decree to repair the disastrous sentence by Supreme Court judge
Corrado Carnevale
, known as the “sentence-killer”, that allowed most of the remaining defendants of the Maxi Trial to walk free from prison. The Martelli decree led to the immediate re-arrest of the Mafia bosses.
[26]
While in Rome he started to restructure the Italian prosecution system, creating district offices to fight the Mafia and a national office to fight organised crime.
[26]
Next was his move to prevent Carnevale from reviewing the sentence of the Maxi Trial. In a blow to the Mafia, the Maxi Trial convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court in January 1992.
[7]
To the surprise of many, Falcone's move to Rome was very successful. He achieved a genuine revolution in the judiciary. The Mafia began to realize that Falcone was even more dangerous in Rome than he had been in Palermo.
[27]
Death
[
edit
]
The Maxi trial sentences being upheld by the Supreme Court were a blow to the Mafia's prestige. The council of top bosses headed by Riina reacted by ordering the assassination of
Salvatore Lima
(on the grounds that he was an ally of
Giulio Andreotti
), and Falcone. Lima was shot dead on 12 March 1992.
Giovanni Brusca
was tasked with killing Falcone. Riina wanted the murder carried out in Sicily in a demonstration of Mafia power; he instructed that the attack should be on
Highway A29
, which Falcone had to use to get from the airport to his home on his weekly visits.
[28]
Four hundred kilograms (881 lbs.) of explosives were placed in a
culvert
under the highway between
Palermo International Airport
and the city of
Palermo
, near the town of
Capaci
. Brusca's men carried out test drives, using flashbulbs to simulate detonating the blast on a speeding car, and a concrete structure was specially created and destroyed in an experimental explosion to see if the bomb would be powerful enough.
Leoluca Bagarella
assisted at the scene during preparations.
[29]
Brusca detonated the device by remote control from a small outbuilding on a hill to the right of the highway on 23 May 1992. Giovanni Falcone, his wife
Francesca Morvillo
and police officers Rocco Dicillo, Antonio Montinaro and Vito Schifani were killed in the blast. The explosion was so powerful that it registered on local earthquake monitors. Riina reportedly threw a party, toasting Falcone's death with
champagne
, according to the
pentito
Salvatore Cancemi
.
[30]
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.
[15]
His colleague
Paolo Borsellino
was killed in
another bombing
57 days later, along with five police officers: Agostino Catalano, Walter Cosina, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, and Claudio Traina.
[31]
In the major crackdown against the Mafia following Falcone and Borsellino's deaths, Riina was arrested on 15 January 1993, and was serving a life sentence, until his death in 2017, for sanctioning the murders of both magistrates as well as many other crimes.
[32]
Brusca, also known as
lo scannacristiani
(the people slaughterer), was convicted of Falcone's murder. He was one of Riina's associates and admitted to detonating the explosives.
[33]
Dozens of mafiosi were sentenced to life imprisonment for their involvement in Falcone's murder.
[34]
Reports in May 2019 indicated that a Cosa Nostra insider revealed that
John Gotti
of the
Gambino crime family
had sent one of their explosives experts to Sicily to work with the
Corleonesi Mafia clan
to help plan the bombing that would kill Falcone.
[35]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Palermo International Airport
has been named
Falcone-Borsellino Airport
in honour of the two judges and hosts a memorial of the pair by the local
sculptor
Tommaso Geraci
. Monuments commemorating Falcone and the other victims of the
Capaci bombing
were placed around Italy, including in
Peschiera del Garda
. Falcone was posthumously awarded the
Train Foundation
's
Civil Courage Prize
, which recognises "extraordinary heroes of conscience".
[36]
A monument to Falcone stands also at the FBI's National Academy in Virginia to honour his contributions to the "Pizza Connection" case.
[37]
In popular culture
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Mafia"
.
interactive.aljazeera.com
.
Archived
from the original on 20 August 2018
. Retrieved
9 September
2018
.
- ^
Jordan, David C. (22 January 2016).
Drug Politics: Dirty Money and Democracies
. University of Oklahoma Press.
ISBN
9780806172217
.
Archived
from the original on 26 July 2018
. Retrieved
9 September
2018
– via Google Books.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, pp. 22?27
- ^
ISRAELY, JEFF (24 October 2006).
"Giovanni Falcone & Paolo Borsellino"
.
Time
.
Archived
from the original on 29 August 2018
. Retrieved
9 September
2018
– via content.time.com.
- ^
La Licata,
Storia di Giovanni Falcone
, p. 23, 83
- ^
a
b
c
Follain,
Vendetta
, pp. 8?9
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino and the Procura of Palermo
Archived
21 October 2012 at the
Wayback Machine
, Peter Schneider & Jane Schneider, May 2002, essay is based on excerpts from Chapter Six of Jane Schneider and Peter Schneider,
Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo
Archived
28 April 2016 at the
Wayback Machine
, Berkeley: University of California Press
- ^
Obituary: Paolo Borsellino
Archived
12 June 2018 at the
Wayback Machine
,
The Independent
, 21 July 1992
- ^
Remembering Judge Falcone
Archived
26 January 2016 at the
Wayback Machine
,
Best of Sicily magazine
, April 2002
- ^
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, pp. 30?31
- ^
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, pp. 31?32
- ^
Follain,
Vendetta
, p. 33
- ^
Follain,
Vendetta
, p. 10
- ^
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, p. 46
- ^
a
b
Inside The Mafia
Archived
26 July 2019 at the
Wayback Machine
, National Geographic Channel, June 2005.
- ^
Maria Falcone; Francesca Barra (2012).
Giovanni Falcone un eroe solo
. Rizzoli.
ISBN
9788858625309
.
- ^
"338 GUILTY IN SICILY IN A MAFIA TRIAL; 19 GET LIFE TERMS"
.
The New York Times
. 17 December 1987.
Archived
from the original on 22 September 2019
. Retrieved
29 March
2020
.
- ^
Follain, p.19-21
- ^
Follain,
Vendetta
, p.45
- ^
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, pp. 280?83
- ^
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, p. 286
- ^
a
b
Passionate Mafiosi one and all
Archived
28 July 2012 at the
Wayback Machine
,
Marco Travaglio
, on
Beppe Grillo
’s blog, May 2010
- ^
Follain,
Vendetta
, p. 44
- ^
Follain,
Vendetta
, p. 55
- ^
(in Italian)
Addaura, nuova verita sull'attentato a Falcone
Archived
8 July 2013 at the
Wayback Machine
, by Attilio Bolzoni, La Repubblica, 7 May 2010
- ^
a
b
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, pp. 332?36
- ^
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, pp. 348?49
- ^
Follain,
Vendetta
, p. 58-60
- ^
Follain,
Vendetta
, p. 74
- ^
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, pp. 404?05
- ^
Stille,
Excellent Cadavers
, p. 372
- ^
"24 Top Mafia Figures Get Life Sentences in Sicily"
, The New York Times, 27 September 1997
- ^
Sicilian mafia killer's days out of jail provoke fury
Archived
18 January 2017 at the
Wayback Machine
, The Guardian, 14 October 2004
- ^
"STRAGE DI CAPACI, 24 ERGASTOLI - La Repubblica.it"
. 27 September 1997.
Archived
from the original on 4 March 2016
. Retrieved
23 July
2017
.
- ^
"American mafia 'sent explosives expert' to help Sicilian mob assassinate crusading investigator"
.
The Telegraph
. 22 May 2019.
Archived
from the original on 22 May 2019
. Retrieved
22 May
2019
.
- ^
"Honorees"
. Civil Courage Prize. 2010. Archived from
the original
on 13 February 2012
. Retrieved
26 May
2011
.
- ^
"A Partnership is Born"
.
FBI
. 2006.
Archived
from the original on 28 January 2013
. Retrieved
22 May
2013
.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Dickie, John
(2004).
Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia
, London: Coronet,
ISBN
0-340-82435-2
(
Review
in the Observer, 15 February 2004)
- Follain, John (2012).
Vendetta: The Mafia, Judge Falcone and the Quest for Justice
, London: Hodder & Stoughton,
ISBN
978-1-444-71411-1
- Jamieson, Alison (2000).
The Antimafia: Italy’s fight against organized crime
, London: Macmillan,
ISBN
0-333-80158-X
.
- La Licata, Francesco (1993),
Storia di Giovanni Falcone
, Milan: Rizzoli
- Lodato, Saverio (1999),
Ho ucciso Giovanni Falcone: la confessione di Giovanni Brusca
, Milan: Mondadori
- Schneider, Jane T. & Peter T. Schneider (2003).
Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo
, Berkeley: University of California Press
ISBN
0-520-23609-2
- Stille, Alexander
(1995).
Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic
, New York: Vintage
ISBN
0-09-959491-9
External links
[
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Annual winners
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Posthumous awards
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International
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