Italians were forced to
confront brutal periods in their past Wednesday with two
separate cases arising from bloody bombings that shook public
confidence in their institutions.
Prison terms were given to four Cosa Nostra Mafia figures
convicted in the massive explosion that killed anti-mafia
prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three police escorts
in May 1992 while driving on a highway near Palermo.
The sentences came almost 25 years after Mafiosi packed a
highway culvert with a half-tonne of explosives to kill Falcone
and terrorize Italy, due to the revelations of one of the four
Mafiosi who provided prosecutors with evidence to convict his
associates.
Giuseppe Barranca and Cristofaro Cannella were sentenced to
life in prison while Cosimo D'Amato was sentenced to 30 years in
jail.
Gaspare Spatuzza, who gave evidence to prosecutors that
shed light on how the explosives were obtained for the deadly
blast, was handed a 12-year sentence.
The judge adjourned a civil suit related to the case.
Prosecutors have said that Spatuzza's revelations helped
them to better understand many crimes, including high-profile
assassinations carried out through massive explosions planned by
the Mafia in a bid to weaken the Italian State and terrorize the
public.
Earlier this year, Spatuzza confessed to being responsible
for the deaths of roughly 40 people, including the victims of
Cosa Nostra bombings from 1992 to 1993.
"I am responsible for about 40 murders. I ask forgiveness
from the city, from the victims and from their relatives,"
Spatuzza said in September in a Milan court via a live video
transmission from prison.
The former Cosa Nostra crime boss has been convicted of six
bomb attacks that took place from 1992 to 1993.
During that time, the Sicilian Mafia relied heavily on
bombings to assassinate leading anti-mafia magistrates as well
as any civilians near artistic heritage sites, including the
iconic Uffizi Gallery in Florence and Milan's Galleria d'Arte
Moderna.
Meanwhile, a court in Bologna set an extraordinary penalty
of two billion euros in damages against a far-right terrorist
couple responsible for an explosion at the Bologna central train
station that killed 85 people in 1980.
Valerio Giuseppe Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro, former
members of the NAR neo-fascist terrorist group, were convicted
of the August 2, 1980 bombing that also wounded more than 200
people in one of the worst atrocities of Italy's so-called years
of lead of political violence in the 1970s and 1980s.
Fioravanti and Mambro, a married couple, are free after
serving long prison terms.
The court ordered them to pay the national government
2.134273 billion euros.
"The gravity of that act is without precedent in Italian
history," wrote the judges who awarded the damages on Wednesday.
"After 34 years, it is possible to say that this event has
made an indelible impression on the nation's collective
conscience - authentic permanent damage".
A group representing Bologna victims welcomed the ruling.
"It's wonderful news," said Paolo Bolognesi of the Vittime
2 Agosto association.
"If nothing else, the Bologna massacre will remain as an
indelible, constant strain for them and their heirs, including
from an economic point of view".
In Sicily, the murders of Falcone and his colleague Paolo
Borsellino were among the crimes that allegedly induced the
State to enter into secret talks with Cosa Nostra two decades
ago in a bid to stop attacks after a long campaign of violence.
Along with Falcone, the explosion killed his wife Francesca
Morvillo and bodyguards Antonio Montinaro, Vito Schifani and
Rocco Di Cillo.
Just two months later, Borsellino and his security detail
were killed by a huge bomb in July 1992 outside his mother's
apartment.
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