1992-2022, the Capaci massacre told to those who weren’t there

Giorgio Faletti sang it as “that crime, about those dead boys killed, thrown into the air like a rag, fallen to the ground like people who have torn to pieces with explosives”. It is the Capaci massacre.

On May 23, 1992, the day of the massacre, he was a Saturday. It was one of those afternoons in which it is no longer spring and it is not yet summer, those in which those who can have already taken the road to the sea. It was one of those afternoons where there were only old movies and sports to watch on television and maybe not even that. The Giro d’Italia started the next day from Genoa, three days before Sampdoria had lost the European Cup final with Barcelona, ​​Milan had already won the championship of a championship that would have ended on Sunday 24th.

Those who zapped in that late afternoon still ran almost exclusively on the traditional channels that on the newscasts talked about the wait in Rome for theelection of the new head of state (Scalfaro elected on the 25th) and that, shortly after 6 pm, they all left together to give news that was unimaginable.

“IncredibleIncredibly, Queen Elizabeth said at the scene of that drama a few days later. She asked to make one more stop on her tour, a stop in Palermo before setting off on the Britannia yacht to Malta. She stopped in silence at the site of the massacre where Giovanni Falcone, Francesca Morvillo, her wife, and three escort agents died: Antonio Montinaro, Vito Schifani and Rocco Dicillo.

It is not that there had not been massacres and bombs in the history of the Italian Republic, but that 1992 was something different. It was not terrorism of a political matrix (even if there is, it does not completely exclude links), it was not the clash in the skies of Ustica. It was the mafia attacking the state and he allegedly did so several times that year, killing Paolo Borsellino and his escort in the month of July.

What happened to Capaci

An explosion, a roar in the afternoon. It remains a real crater of 14 meters on the A29 motorway that connects Palermo and the Punta Raisi airport. At 5:58 pm the detonation while Falcone’s car and those of his escort pass, just before the sign indicating the junction for Capaci. There are 20 kilometers to get to Palermo.

The explosion is triggered by a remote detonator. The 500-pound TNT had been placed in a drainage tunnel under the highway for days. The explosion hit three Fiat Croma cars. The brown one is thrown more than 60 meters away, here are the three dead escort agents. The blue one remains intact. The white one is cut in half by hitting a wall of debris. The magistrate is driving. He and his wife are thrown on the windshield. The driver sitting in the back seat is saved. If Falcone hadn’t decided to drive, perhaps he would have been saved.

The victims

The target is Giovanni Falcone, anti-mafia magistrate par excellence, one of those in the maxi trial (400 defendants, 19 life sentences) and the pool put together by Chinnici and Caponnetto, the one who had his eyes on Mafia accounts and who was then Director General of Criminal Affairs of the Ministry of Justice, collaborated with Minister Martelli. In the past he escaped an attack in his villa in Addaura. He spends most of the week in Rome now, but at the weekend he tries to return to Palermo.

Four other people die with him: his wife, Francesca Morvillo, also a magistrate, and the escort agents Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo and Antonio Montinaro. 23 people were injuredamong them the agents Paolo Capuzza, Angelo Corbo, Gaspare Cervello and Giuseppe Costanza who was in the back seat of Falcone’s car.

He is a farmer at work in a nearby field providing first aid. Falcone and his wife are loaded into an ambulance, but die of their injuries in the hospital.

Planning

To operate the remote control is Giovanni Brusca, the man who killed and dissolved in acid Giuseppe Di Matteo, a child son of the repentant who had mentioned his name by connecting him to the massacre. With him is Antonino Gioè on the hill from which he sees the passage of cars. The bosses cut down the trees and placed an appliance at the designated point of the highway. The principal, according to what investigations and trials have confirmed, is the top of the Cosa Nostra: the head of the bosses, Totò Riina, but not only. More meetings and reunions are those in which the attack, the “attacksIs planned. There is Matteo Messina Denaro, there is Bernardo Provenzano. And again Leoluca Bagarella, Gioacchino La Barbera, Mariano Agate. All prominent names of the Sicilian Mafia who want to make their strength felt after the confirmation in the Supreme Court of the convictions of the maxi trial. Falcone was not the only possible target, as he was targeted Maurizio Costanzo and the Minister of Justice Claudio Martelli.

Boss men check the movements of the escort cars in Palermo and it is Domenico Ganci who warns that they have left to fetch Falcone on 23 May. No trial has ascertained if anyone had said that Falcone was leaving Rome on time. A car runs parallel to the Falcone and escort vehicles and gives the definitive go-ahead to those who have to press the button. The mafiosi locked up in the Ucciardone prison in Palermo celebrate the massacre.

Funeral

There are boos and screams for politicians at the funeral of Judge Falcone and the escort officers on May 25th. A woman climbs to the altar: she is Rosaria Schifani, 22-year-old widow of one of the dead men and mother of a four-month-old baby. “Turning to the men of the Mafia, because they are in here … know that for you too there is a possibility of forgiveness: I forgive you, but you have to get down on your knees… ».

Via D’Amelio

Paolo Borsellino, the judge friend and colleague of Falcone, knows from the day of the Capaci massacre that his hours are numbered. His massacre arrives 52 days later, in via D’Amelio in Palermo where he went to visit his mother. 5 officers of the escort die with him.

The memory

May 23 is the day when legality is remembered. Until the pandemic, from 2002, the ship of legality left Civitavecchia to arrive in Palermo with the school children. In 2022 the Sicilian city hosts 1,400 sheets made by 1,070 schools who accepted the appeal of the Ministry of Education and the Falcone Foundation, launched through the call #LaMemoriaDiTutti.

In recent weeks, students and students have explored the story of women and men killed by mafia violence and decorated the white sheets, which the Palermo people used in 1992, in the aftermath of the massacres, to demonstrate their rebellion, with illustrations and messages. They are posted in the Foro Italico Umberto I, the place where the official celebration will take place, and on the balconies of the citizens who have agreed to exhibit them during the project period.

There are many other tangible memories of that massacre, statues, streets, libraries, palaces that bear the name of Falcone and Borsellino. Most of all the photo that sees them togethertaken in 1992 by Tony Gentile, e the remains of the escort car. “Quarto Savona 15” is the code name of the escort and that of the car. What is left of it travels to Italy to show everyone what the mafia is capable of.

On the thirtieth anniversary, one was minted two euro coin with the historic image of the two magistrates in the fight against the mafia, who died in the massacres of Capaci and via D’Amelio. At the top are the surnames of the two magistrates and the dates 1992-2002.

– Mafia massacres: “We condemned to survive”

– Falcone’s driver: “I, survived but forgotten by the state”