Italy remembers anti-mafia judge Falcone 30 years after massacre
Rome, May 23 (EFE).- Italy remembered renowned anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone Monday, 30 years after he and his wife were brutally killed.
Dozens of Italian cities will observe a minute’s silence at 5:57 PM (3:57 PM GMT), the time when on 23 May 1992 the mafia placed 500 kilos of explosives on the highway that connects Palermo with the airport killing Falcone, his wife judge Francesca Morvillo, and three police escorts.
The renowned anti-mafia judge managed to break the Italian mafia’s sacred code of silence using an innovative investigative method known as the Falcone method and managed to get the first mobster turned informant to collaborate with him.
“Falcone’s cutting-edge, clearly prophetic vision was not always understood,” President Sergio Mattarella said at a commemorative event in Palermo.
Dozens of mayors have joined an initiative to observe a minute’s silence at the time of the Capacci attack.
White sheets will also be hung from the municipal balconies to remember what the women of Palermo did the summer of 1992 after Falcone and two months later judge Paolo Borsellino were killed.
For weeks during that summer, women hung sheets from their balconies with anti-mafia messages.
“Falcone and Borsellino, as well as so many others who fell in the fight against the mafia, are an example and role models for all honest magistrates who want to change things and risk their lives every day,” Vincenzo Linarello, organizer in Rome of a march to ask for protection for anti-mafia magistrates, tells Efe.
The greatest tribute took place in Palermo, the hometown of Falcone and Borsellino, where the Mattarella, alongside several ministers and members of the security forces and Maria Falcone, the judge’s sister who has been seeking justice since her brother’s murder.
Thirty years on, Falcone and Borsellino’s killings are still shrouded in doubts and mystery.
The leader of Cosa Nostra Salvatore “Totó” Riina was convicted as the mastermind behind the massacre and mobster Giovanni Brusca, who was released a few months ago after 25 years in prison, was convicted for the murder.
But the families of the victims are still waiting for corrupt politicians and civil servants to be convicted for their involvement with organized crime. EFE
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