A court in the Sicilian
city of Caltanissetta has sentenced four defendants to life in
the second trial into the 1992 assassination of crusading
anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca
Morvillo, also a judge, and police officers Rocco Dicillo,
Antonio Montinaro and Vito Schifani.
Salvatore Salvo Madonia, Cosimo Lo Nigro, Giorgio Pizzo and
Lorenzo Tinnirello on Tuesday night were given life terms for
their role in organizing the hit and acquiring the half-ton of
explosives used to blow up Falcone and the other victims.
A fifth defendant, Vittorio Tutino, for whom prosecutors had
also sought a life term, was acquitted.
Judges said Salvo Madonia, a leading member of the Mafia in
Palermo, was one of the bosses who ordered the hit while the
other three co-defendants placed the explosives.
The court is scheduled to release its explanation of the
sentence within the next 90 days.
The explosives were placed in a culvert under the motorway
between Palermo International Airport and the city of Palermo,
at the exit to the town of Capaci.
They were detonated by remote control on May 23, 1992,
causing a blast so powerful it registered on local earthquake
monitors.
Mafia 'boss of bosses' Toto Riina was arrested in 1993 and
convicted of ordering the hit.
He is currently serving 12 life sentences for the Falcone
assassination and a number of other crimes.
The trial in Caltanissetta followed a new investigation
opened after former Mafia hitman Gaspare Spatuzza, a member of
the Brancaccio clan, started cooperating with judicial
authorities in 2008, revealing new details and the role played
by the Brancaccio clan in preparing the deadly hit.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
