Caltanissetta, 16 April. (beraking latest news) – (by correspondent Elvira Terranova) – The misdirection of the Via D’Amelio massacre “has occurred” and the responsibility “lies with the police who did it not out of a banal desire to advance their career but to facilitate what ours. A betrayal that cannot be forgiven.” This is why the three policemen in the dock “must be convicted”. To heavy penalties. The general prosecutor of Caltanissetta, Fabio D’Anna, at the end of a lengthy indictment, asked for 11 years and 10 months in prison for Mario Bo and 9 years and 6 months each for Fabrizio Mattei and Michele Ribaudo. The same penalties requested in the first degree trial. They are accused of aggravated slander for having fabricated false repentants, inducing them to lie, to sidetrack the investigations into the Via D’Amelio massacre. The Caltanissetta court, in first instance, on 12 July 2022, declared the charges against Mario Bo and Fabrizio Mattei to be barred, while the third accused, Michele Ribaudo, was acquitted. But the General Prosecutor’s Office doesn’t agree and is now asking for everyone to be convicted. With the aggravating mafia charge.
“The investigations, immediately after the massacre, suffered evidentiary pollution”, says the Attorney General D’Anna. Which also brings the state apparatus into play. That is, the magistrates who handled the investigations 30 years ago. “Reading the sentence we realize and cannot refrain from saying that the behavior of some colleagues also contributed to this evidential pollution. Inattentive colleagues who were not able to grasp elements of indicators of falsity of the former justice collaborator Vincenzo Scarantino “he says.
“There was a betrayal on the part of the state apparatus which betrayed not only Borsellino but also the agents of the escort. A betrayal that cannot be forgiven. One can betray for many reasons: for money, yes there was some in the towards La Barbera but not towards today’s defendants, for his career, but La Barbera didn’t need it, he was still young and would soon become police commissioner, what reason did he have to get involved with a fool like Scarantino”. “Another reason – he continued – could have been the fact that it was necessary to find a culprit to present to public opinion: but why Scarantino? That is, the only one who was part of a family that had nothing to do with it. But why him? The answer I gave it to myself: the only interest that explains the stubbornness of the Falcone-Borsellino group is that they knew perfectly well that with their behavior they were moving away from the truth of the investigations, either to protect state apparatus or to protect mafia apparatus”.
They, the accused, “are not, however, the only demons”. “The line of demons should be long in the dock, but either they are dead or they got away with it,” says prosecutor Maurizio Bonaccorso, attached to the General Prosecutor’s Office. “There are leaders and individuals who got away with it and we know who they are”, he adds. And then he underlines: “There are a series of elements that give certainty of the involvement of institutional figures in the elimination of Doctor Borsellino”.
According to Deputy Attorney General Gaetano Bono, the first instance sentence was “contradictory, illogical, unfair and misleading”. Because the policemen in the dock, now all retired, deliberately sidetracked the investigation into the attack on Paolo Borsellino. “The director of the misdirection was Arnaldo La Barbera, who died a few years ago as a celebrated anti-mafia investigator”, adds the prosecutor Gaetano Bono, who at the time of the massacre was still a nine-year-old child. He says: “There is an illogicality of the first sentence degree which after a few pages paints an inconsistent picture of the reliability of Vincenzo Scarantino”, the false collaborator of justice who had seven innocent people convicted, says Bono who quotes some sentences from the first degree sentence. The judges write: ‘It is consider that there is a core of limited reliability’, and Bono lists “4 points”. pg.
According to prosecutor Gaetano Bono, the sentence must be reformed “both in terms of fact and law”. Since the “acquittal pronouncement is inconsistent”. For the prosecution, the “contradiction concerns the mafia association which is the most important issue of the entire trial. The aggravating circumstance is believed to exist which would allow the Court to rule on the responsibilities of Mario Bo and Fabrizio Mattei but also on that of Michele Ribaudo “. According to Bono “we are in the presence of insufficient motivation”.
Prosecutor Maurizio Bonaccorso explains in his long speech: “Only after the death of Arnaldo La Barbera was it discovered that there was a collaborative relationship between the policeman and the Sisde, from which it emerges that Barbera had maintained a collaborative relationship since February 1986 to March 1988, with code name ‘Rutilius’, while he was director of the Venice Flying Squad”. The former manager and former police commissioner of Palermo “was paid illegally, and not to pay his confidants but for personal needs, because he loved staying in hotels”, says Bonaccorso. “A situation of unprecedented gravity for a manager who is financed illegally by the secret services”, adds the prosecutor. And he takes issue with the first instance ruling which “minimized a very important fact”.
He then underlines that Arnaldo La Barbera “was on the Madonia payroll”. “Barbera had a very high standard of living. We ascertained that she continually paid money into her bank account. In one year around 100 million old lire. It’s difficult to believe that it could have been business trips. She hadn’t even gone around the world. What what is significant are the ways in which this cash is paid. In ’91 there is a single payment of 8 million lire, in ’92 this person suddenly changes habits with respect to his banking activity and begins to make continuous payments for really large amounts. They are certainly not all illicit proceeds but this data confirms what collaborators Vito Galatolo and Francesco Onorato said, namely that La Barbera was on the Madonia payroll. So we have an ambiguous character who on the one hand is constantly financed by Sisde On the other hand we have collaborators who tell us about a relationship with the mafia.”
He then reiterates that the “collaboration between the Caltanissetta Prosecutor’s Office and the Sisde was born from the obstinacy of the Prosecutor Tinebra”. The magistrate speaks of an “anomalous, not to say disturbing, collaboration between the Caltanissetta Prosecutor’s Office and the SISDE in the initial phase of the investigations”. Then, turning to the defense of the three defendants, he says: “I hope not to hear anything from the defense about the fact that the dead are tried, those who are unable to defend themselves, about splashes of mud, as was done in the first instance. Because beyond the catchphrases, I would like to understand what a public prosecutor should do when there is the possibility of a criminal insolvency action when the central figure has died. Should we also close the case for the others? they can omit all arguments concerning the central figure”.
Then he says: “I regret that, unfortunately, in this process it has not been possible to carry out the complete discovery of the elements that have emerged so far, and I hope that one day we will not have to eat our hands in relation to the need to preserve an ongoing investigation” . The magistrate refers to the investigation into the red agenda and the documentation found at the home of the former director of the Palermo Flying Squad Arnaldo La Barbera. In September 2023 a witness had said: “At the home of La Barbera’s family there is Paolo Borsellino’s red diary”. And the ROS carabinieri carried out very thorough searches, the red diary was not there. However A large amount of bank documentation dating back to the early 1990s was seized. A lot of money would have ended up in La Barbera’s account, which he himself deposited month after month in his account. “Between 1990 and 1992, payments totaling 114 million were made. old lire”, the public prosecutor Maurizio Bonaccorso said in court. ”The anomalies mainly concern 1992, the Financial Police ascertained an inequality of approximately 97 million compared to the income received”.
During the long indictment the General Prosecutor’s Office returned to talking about Paolo Borsellino’s red agenda. “In this diary he wrote down a series of reflections on the Capaci massacre in the hope of being heard in Caltanissetta”, says prosecutor Maurizio Bonaccorso. “Mrs. Agnese Piraino, widow of Paolo Borsellino, explained that, in the certainty of being killed, Borsellino had begun to use two diaries, the gray one and the red one, where he wrote down his reflections explains the General Prosecutor’s Office – The second piece of data is the presence of red diary in Borsellino’s bag on 19 July 1992. On this point we have the statements of his daughter, Lucia Borsellino, who tells us: ‘Dad had three diaries, one brown, where he put some data and telephone numbers, the other grey, where he wrote down some things, and the red one which was very important to him. That morning he had brought the diary with him because it will not be found at his family’s home.” “Another significant fact is that it was not Cosa Nostra that took possession of the red agenda. Because it is unthinkable that at the scene of the massacre there were mafiosi who intervened to take over the agenda.” And remember that “the bag reappears in Arnaldo La Barbera’s room months later, in an irregular manner, without a seizure report having been made, and above all it is irregularly returned to Borsellino’s family”. After the request for conviction, civil party lawyer Giuseppe D’Acquì took the floor, representing two of the seven innocent people unjustly convicted, Natale Giuseppe Gambino and Gaetano Scotto. The trial has been postponed to April 23 to hear the civil parties.