While the Mafia remains a threat, it
can and will be defeated, President Sergio Mattarella said on
Thursday in a message for the 32nd anniversary of the murder of
anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three of
his bodyguards by Cosa Nostra in the 1992 Capaci bomb attack.
Falcone's friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino was killed two
months later by another huge Cosa Nostra bomb.
"As Falcone and Borsellino said, the Republic has shown that the
Mafia can be defeated and that it is destined to end," the head
of State said.
"The commitment to fight it never falters.
"Attempts to pollute civil society and intimidation of economic
operators are always lurking.
"The day of law and order that we are celebrating aims to a sign
of a common responsibility.
"It is necessary to maintain a high level vigilance.
"The institutional antibodies and social mobilization to prevent
mafia organizations from finding support in gray and compliant
areas cannot be weakened.
"The legacy of Falcone and Borsellino is a living inheritance
that belongs to the entire national community.
"Carrying on their work entails working for a better society".
Falcone led the investigation that culminated in the so-called
Maxi Trial in which over 300 people were convicted, in the
process proving that the Sicilian Mafia actually did exist,
something that was not universally accepted at the time.
Falcone and Borsellino were killed in a bombing campaign
launched by Cosa Nostra after the supreme court upheld the Maxi
Trial convictions, making them definitive.
Mattarella is the brother of Piersanti Mattarella, the Sicilian
governor who was murdered by the mafia in 1980.
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