Antimafia Commission
[1] The first proposal to constitute a commission of inquiry into the Mafia was the result of post-war struggles for land reform and the violent reaction against peasant organizations and its leaders, culminating in the killing of 11 people and the wounding of over thirty at a Labour Day parade in Portella della Ginestra.
The proposal was turned down by the interior minister Mario Scelba, amidst indignant voices about prejudice against Sicily and Sicilians.
In 1961, the Christian Democracy party (DC) in the Senate and Sicilian politicians like Bernardo Mattarella and Giovanni Gioia, both later accused of links with the Mafia, dismissed the proposal as "useless".
On 30 June 1963, a car bomb exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it, after an anonymous phone call.
Matta's arrival in 1972 created a scandal, as he had been mentioned in a report and was summoned to testify in the previous legislature about the role of the Mafia in real estate speculation.
The measures included special surveillance; the possibility of ordering a suspect to reside in a designed place outside his home area and the suspension of publicly issued licenses, grants or authorizations.
The law gave powers to a public prosecutor or questor (chief of police) to identify and trace the assets of anyone suspected of involvement in a Mafia-type association.
Secondly, because the obligation for mafiosi to reside in areas outside Sicily, opened up new opportunities to develop illicit activities in the cities of northern and central Italy.
Pafundi’s successor who took over the commission in 1968 was a different man, Francesco Cattanei, a member of the DC from the Northern Italy who was determined to investigate thoroughly.
In July 1971, the commission published an intermediary report with biographies of prominent mafiosi, such as Tommaso Buscetta, and summarized the characteristics of the Mafia.
The Antimafia Commission investigated the activities and failed prosecution of Luciano Leggio, the administration of Palermo and the wholesale markets in the city, as well as the links between the Mafia and banditry in the post-war period.
In its March 1972 report, the Antimafia Commission said in its introduction: "Generally speaking magistrates, trade unionists, prefects, journalists, and the police authorities expressed an affirmative judgement on the existence of more or less intimate links between Mafia and the public authorities ... some trade unionists reached the point of saying that 'the mafioso is a man of politics'."
Terranova, together with PCI deputy Pio La Torre, wrote the minority report of the Antimafia Commission, which pointed to links between the Mafia and prominent politicians, in particular of the DC party.
Even today the behaviour of the ruling DC group in the running of the City and the Provincional Councils offers the most favourable terrain for the perpetuation of the system of Mafia power.
In 1993, the fourth Antimafia Commission led by Luciano Violante concluded that there were strong indications of relations between Lima and members of the Mafia.
This commission marked a change in operations, as the focus shifted from analyses and knowledge about the Mafia to proposals at the legislative and administrative level.
It lobbied for the introduction of new legislation, such as the reform of the Rognoni–La Torre Law, whereby asset seizure and confiscation provisions were applicable to other forms of criminal association, including drug trafficking, extortion, and usury, among others.
In February 1992, ahead to the general elections of 5 April 1992, the commission urged political parties to apply a code of self-regulation when presenting candidates, a measure intended to mirror the legislative provisions for public-office holders in 1990; no one should stand for election who had been committed for trial, was a fugitive from the law, was serving a criminal sentence, was subject to preventive measures or was convicted, even though not definitively, for crimes of corruption, Mafia association, and a range of others.
[8] On 8 June 1992, the fourth Antimafia Commission was installed, after the Capaci bombing resulted in the murder of judge Giovanni Falcone on 23 May.
He said: "Salvo Lima was, in fact, the politician to whom Cosa Nostra turned most often to resolve problems for the organization whose solution lay in Rome."
Other collaborating witnesses confirmed that Lima had been specifically ordered to fix the appeal of the Maxi Trial with Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation, and had been murdered because he failed to do so.
