State-Mafia Pact
[1] 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.
[2][3][4][5][6][7] 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.
[9] According to reenactments, in September–October 1991, during some meetings of the Cosa Nostra "Interprovincial Commission" occurred in Enna or thereabouts and led by the boss Salvatore Riina, it was decided to start with terrorist actions, because 475 people suspected to be mafiosi were arrested.
[12][13] Claudio Martelli was watched by mafia bosses because according to the pentiti Angelo Siino, Nino Giuffrè and Gaspare Spatuzza he was between "those four crasti (Sicilian for cuckholded) socialists who first took our votes, in '87, and then waged war against us".
In 1992 the boss Giovanni Brusca tried to open a first negotiation through the mafioso Antonino Gioè (who will be one among the killers of Capaci bombing), which was put in contact by Bellini, an art trafficker linked to secret services.
[16] On 12 March 1992 the deputy Salvo Lima, Sicilian parliamentarian of Democrazia Cristiana, was killed some days before the Italian general election since he was no more able to guarantee the interests of mafia clans within the government: in particular, he didn't succeed to influence the Maxi Trial in Cassation.
[18] After the murder of Lima, the deputy Calogero Mannino, at the time nominated minister for extraordinary intervents of the Mezzogiorno in Andreotti VII Cabinet, got in touch (through marshal of Carabinieri Giuliano Guazzelli) with Antonio Subranni, at the time commander of ROS, because he was warned by a mafioso intimidation, a funeral flowers wreath, an evident death threat and he feared in turn to be killed.
[22][23] Guazzelli was killed since mafiosi bosses wanted to give a strong signal to Mannino and Subranni, to raise the game and to impose a high-level deal.
[24] On 23 May there was the Capaci bombing, in which Giovanni Falcone was killed, since the Interprovincial and Provincial Commission of Cosa nostra and led by the boss Salvatore Riina wanted to revenge for his activity of antimafia magistrate.
[25] In the massacre even his wife Francesca Morvillo and three police escorts (Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo and Antonio Montinaro) lost their life.
[19][30] In the same period, Giovanni Brusca received by Salvatore Biondino the instruction to suspend the preparation of the attack against Mannino because they were "working for more important things".
[36][37][38] On 22 July Colonel Mori met lawyer Fernanda Contri (general secretary at Palazzo Chigi) in order that she referred to the prime minister Giuliano Amato about the occurred contacts with Ciancimino.
After the arrest, there were two mafioso groups with different ideas: one (formed by Leoluca Bagarella, Giovanni Brusca, brothers Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano) was favorable to continue the attacks against the Italian State, the other one (formed by Michelangelo La Barbera, Raffaele Ganci, Salvatore Cancemi, Matteo Motisi, Benedetto Spera, Nino Giuffrè, Pietro Aglieri) was against the continuation of the attacks.
[13] On 17 March, some self-styled relatives of mafiosi inmates, that were jailed in Asinara Penitentiary and Pianosa Penitentiary, sent a threatening letter to the President of Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and, for information, to: the Pope; the bishop of Florence; the cardinal of Palermo; the prime minister Giuliano Amato; the ministers Conso and Mancino; the journalist Maurizio Costanzo; the deputy Vittorio Sgarbi; the CSM; the Giornale di Sicilia.
The magistrate Sebastiano Ardita, former chief of Direzione generale dei detenuti e del trattamento, wrote about links between the massacres and the article 41-bis events in his Ricatto allo Stato (Blackmail to the State): Highlighting who were the other recipients of that letter is matter of great interest.
Even if after ten years in that office a replacement would be normal, in this case there would be uspecified disagreement with the president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, according to former DAP deputy chief Edoardo Fazzioli.
[50] On 26 June, Capriotti sent a note to Conso in which he explained his new way to secretly not extend 373 measures of 41 bis in November, that would have constituted "a positive signal of detente".
[23][52] In that period, according to the pentito Tullio Cannella, Bernardo Provenzano and the Graviano brothers abandoned the Sicilia Libera project to give electoral support to the new political party Forza Italia founded by Silvio Berlusconi.
[10] According to the pentito Nino Giuffrè, the Graviano brothers dealt with Berlusconi by the businessman Gianni Jenna in order to obtain judicial benefits and 41 bis reworking in exchange for electoral support to Forza Italia; still according to Giuffrè, also Provenzano activated some channels to arrive to Marcello Dell'Utri and Berlusconi in order to present a list of requests about several arguments in which Cosa Nostra had interest.
[44][55] On 27 January 1994 in Milan the Graviano brothers, which were involved in the organisation of all the attempts, were arrested: from that moment the massacres strategy of Cosa Nostra stopped.
For this reason the investigators focused on probably linked episodes, like the fact that in 1993 about three hundred 41 bis applications were left to expire and Nicolò Amato was replaced as chief of Dipartimento dell'amministrazione penitenziaria.
