New Arrests for Via D’Amelio Bomb Attack

Pre-trial detention orders served on gang boss Salvatore Madonia, Vittorio Tutino and Salvatore Vitale

MILAN – The DIA police intelligence unit has served four warrants for pre-trial detention, issued by the Caltanissetta investigating magistrate, on four suspects in the new inquiry into the Via D’Amelio bomb attack, which killed magistrate Paolo Borsellino and his bodyguards. The recipients are one of the alleged instigators, gangland boss Salvatore Madonia, and two alleged killers, Vittorio Tutino and Salvatore Vitale. Another warrant for perjury was served on a police collaborator, Calogero Pulci.

THE CHARGES – DIA officers served warrants in prison on Madonia and Tutino, who are already in custody, and on the seriously ill Vitale at the clinic where is under house arrest. The warrants were the outcome of inquiries launched by the Caltanissetta public prosecutor’s office following statements taken from Gaspare Spatuzza, which led to a review of the “Borsellino” and “Borsellino Two” trials at the Catania court of appeal. Like Madonia, Tutino and Vitale, Spatuzza is under investigation for aggravated multiple murder. The men arrested are, however, also suspected of other offences, such as aiding Mafia-style criminal association and engaging in terrorist activities. Tutino and Spatuzza are charged with stealing the Fiat 126 that was used in the attack. Spatuzza is also alleged to have obtained to batteries and an aerial to power and connect the trigger for the explosives in the Fiat 126 parked in Via D’Amelio. Salvatore Vitale, who has already been convicted of kidnapping the young Giuseppe Di Matteo, is alleged to have procured the explosives and electronic devices for the car bomb. He is also thought to be the bombers’ “mole” in Via D’Amelio, where he lived in a ground-floor flat in the same building as the magistrate’s sister, Rita Borsellino. Prosecutors maintain that Vitale used his privileged position to provide logistical support during preparations for the bombing as well as crucial information on the family’s routine, particularly the visits made by Paolo Borsellino to his relatives in Via D’Amelio. Moreover, Vitale is alleged to have given Giuseppe Graviano access to his stables in the Regia Corte district, where Spatuzza claims he handed over to Graviano the licence plates for the explosives-stuffed Fiat 126.

TURNAROUND – The new pre-trial detention warrants stem from reviews of the Borsellino trials and are thought to support a new interpretation of the motives behind the Via D’Amelio killings. According to what has emerged from the new investigation, Paolo Borsellino was murdered by the Mafia along with five members of his escort in Via D’Amelio because Cosa Nostra’s boss, Totò Riina, perceived him as an obstacle to his negotiations with state institutions. The negotiations “appeared to have reached a dead end” and the Mafia boss wanted to “revitalise” them with a bloody show of strength. The Caltanissetta prosecutor’s file notes that “the timing of the multiple murder was certainly influenced by the existence and progress of the so-called negotiations between representatives of the institutions and Cosa Nostra. It also emerges from the investigations”, continue the magistrates, citing evidence taken from Giovanni Falcone’s successor at the ministry of justice, Liliana Ferraro, “that Dr Borsellino was informed of the negotiations on 18 June 1992. This adds further weight to the suspicion that there was a link between Borsellino’s awareness of the negotiations, the fact that Riina perceived him as an obstacle and the consequent rescheduling of the murder to an earlier date”.

STATEMENTS – According to the magistrates in Caltanissetta, “this conclusion is corroborated by, among other things, the statements taken from police collaborator Giovanni Brusca on the order from Totò Riina in June 1992 to suspend the murder attempt on the parliamentarian Calogero Mannino because there was a more urgent matter to be dealt with”. Mannino, a former minister and secretary of the Sicilian Christian Democrat party, was recently registered as being under investigation in connection with the negotiations by the Palermo public prosecutor’s office. He is alleged to have pressed for relaxation of the strict article 41b prison regime at that time because he feared for his life. Riina’s order to break off preparations for the Mannino attack is, say the Caltanissetta magistrates, “indicative of the decision by Riina at least to bring forward the project – already approved by Cosa Nostra’s provincial committee in December 1991 – to murder Dr Paolo Borsellino”. Two days after the Capaci bombing [i.e. on 25 May 1993 – Ed.], Borsellino met the head of the Carabinieri’s ROS special operations group, Mario Mori, and Captain Giuseppe De Donno, and “on 1 July 1992, Dr Borsellino definitely went to the ministry of the interior to meet the chief of police Parisi, prefect Rossi and interior minister Mancino”, according to the magistrates’ reconstruction of Borsellino’s relations with state institutions. It was at this time that the former mayor of Palermo, Mafia member and suspected middleman for the negotiations Vito Ciancimino was contacting the Carabinieri. When he was questioned on 17 March 1993, Ciancimino tried to date the start of negotiations to the period after the Via D’Amelio attack, claiming he “had initiated discussions with De Donno after the Borsellino multiple murder, and in doing so contradicting the subsequent admissions of Captain De Donna, and the statements by Colonel Mori, both of whom refer to talks between Vito Ciancimino and De Donno as beginning in June 1992”. During questioning on the rescheduling of the Borsellino bombing, Brusca told magistrates that: “I never discussed with Riina the issue of whether Dr Borsellino was murdered because he was an obstacle to negotiations. This is my interpretation, based on the knowledge I have of Cosa Nostra’s affairs but also of the trial proceedings I have been involved in. I was told by Riina that there was “a wall” to be cleared but no mention was made of Borsellino at the time. However, it is certain that the timing of the attack was brought forward”, Brusca told magistrates.

08 marzo 2012

English translation by Giles Watson

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