Authors: Clare Longrigg
Mafiosi who had worked for Riina, murdered for him and then found themselves despised and outcast, were savage in their criticism. The supergrass Nino Calderone said, ‘He’s got cunning eyes and a peasant’s face. The man’s crazy about money – he would do anything to get his hands on a kickback or get rid of a rival. To him, we were just dead meat.’
After the bombings, satisfied that he had got the government’s attention, Riina tried to force them to come to terms. He wrote a list of demands, and his intention was that if they were not met, the bombing would continue. His sense of his own power had become exalted.
‘I met up with Totò Riina some time after the assassination of Falcone and Borsellino’, his godson Brusca ‘the Pig’ later recalled. ‘I asked him how it was going, and he said, “They’ve given in.” Out of respect and good manners, I didn’t ask what he meant. I was used to seeing Riina as someone who acted in the interests of the organization.
He added: “I’ve made my request. I have given them my list of demands. I’ve given them a list this long.” And he held up his hands to show how huge it was.’
Riina’s demands were typically uncompromising: overturn the maxi-trial verdicts, abolish harsh prison conditions for convicted mafiosi, reverse the confiscation of assets and repeal the law protecting
pentiti
.
‘It was understood’, Brusca said, ‘that if Riina’s demands had been met, we would have stopped the bombs.’
To concentrate minds, Riina decided to give the state one more shake, a
colpetto
, to be sure he had made his point. His target this time was Pietro Grasso, one of the judges from the maxi-trial, who had been working with Falcone in Rome. Grasso had been coming home every weekend to visit his sick mother-in-law on Saturday afternoons. She lived in Mondello, the lovely Norman cathedral town above Palermo, and Grasso’s habitual visits had been noted.
‘There was a manhole in the street outside her house,’ Grasso recalls, ‘and they were going to park a van over the top of it and fill it with explosives. A van had been procured for this purpose, and the floor cut out. They’d got the key to open the manhole cover. But then they noticed there was a bank near by, whose burglar alarm could have interfered with the signal from a remote-control detonator.’ They had already sourced a different sort of remote in Catania that wouldn’t have caused interference, when the would-be assassins were arrested in a round-up of mafiosi. In the meantime the poor lady died.
Grasso had the uncomfortable experience of interviewing his would-be killer, the collaborator Gioacchino La Barbera, about the plans for his execution. ‘He was ashamed, and afraid to find himself face to face with his intended victim,’ Grasso recalls, ‘but I had the disturbing sensation of having narrowly escaped death, and I needed to know every detail.’
Riina’s list of demands has never been found. It seems improbable now that the state would have engaged in talks with Cosa Nostra, in the aftermath of a savage attack on its eminent representatives. But those who were in Palermo at the time do not find it surprising. Police
and magistrates alike were so traumatized by the events of 1992 that they were willing to try anything to stop the bloodshed.
A senior carabiniere, Colonel Mario Mori, has revealed that a deal was in progress during the turbulent late summer of 1992, but it was not about whether to accept Riina’s high-handed list of demands. In fact, it was a deal to try to bring about Riina’s capture.
Colonel Mori revealed that a meeting took place in July 1992 between Ciancimino’s son Massimo and another senior carabiniere, Colonel DeDonno. ‘We wanted to get Riina and put an end to the bombings’, Mori later explained to magistrates. ‘We were looking for contacts within the organization . . . and DeDonno told me he had a good relationship with Massimo Ciancimino. We thought we could try to sort out a meeting with a member of Cosa Nostra through him.
‘A further meeting was arranged in Rome, at Ciancimino’s house near the Spanish Steps. Present were myself, Colonel DeDonno and Vito Ciancimino. I asked Ciancimino if he had any contact with Cosa Nostra that would enable us to try to come to an agreement to stop the bombing. He said he might be able to set something up through an intermediary.
‘He proposed a meeting abroad. I said, “I want Riina’s head.” He jumped out of his seat and shouted, “You want to get me killed!”
‘A few weeks later we met again. He asked for a map of the district where Riina was eventually found. I personally believe he knew where Riina was hiding.’
The deal Mori wanted to offer Cosa Nostra’s leadership was this: you give yourselves up, and we will respect your families. A man of honour must be able to protect his family, it’s one of the basic tenets of his position. But this simple formula was more complicated than it seemed: these families would need somewhere to live. So not only the mafiosi’s families but also their homes would have to be respected – those luxurious villas and cars, their income, perhaps, and even their bank accounts. This was the objection some Palermo magistrates raised. In the climate of anger after the bombings at Capaci and via d’Amelio any such deal, they pointed out, would have quickly unravelled.
One mafioso who sought protection from the law was Balduccio Di Maggio, who had become embroiled in a power struggle in the Mafia fiefdom of San Giuseppe Iato and was in fear of his life. Brusca, the boss of San Giuseppe Iato, was hunting Di Maggio at this time and had several men on the case in different parts of Italy. Di Maggio’s time was running out. But he had key information, which might save him. The police believed they had identified where Riina was living and showed Di Maggio hours of surveillance video, from which he was able to point out Riina and his family members coming and going from their grand Palermo villa. For the carabinieri, who had only one ancient photo of Riina from 1958, with Brylcreemed curls and a pencil moustache, the identification was a major breakthrough.
At 8.15 on 15 January 1993 an unremarkable beige Citroën was stopped in a traffic jam in a Palermo street. The little man who was bundled out into the street looked stricken, then relaxed when he realized his assailants were officers of the state, not Mafia assassins. He was taken into custody and photographed in handcuffs. The full-length police shot was circulated to the news media worldwide: Salvatore Riina, godfather of Corleone, ‘la Belva’, the savage killer driven mad by power, and wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, had been caught. His physical reality was a shock to all those who had followed his murderous career: he was extremely short, square-headed, with a jowly peasant look and an expensive suit. He spoke softly, addressed investigators respectfully and stood up when magistrates entered the room. (This mild demeanour did not last: during his court appearances he could no longer contain his rage and scorn. He accused Caselli of being a communist agitator and insulted the witnesses, accusing them of moral turpitide and lying.)
Conspiracy theories crowded in. ‘There was supposed to be a meeting on 15 January to discuss the progress of the negotiations’, Brusca recalled. ‘I don’t believe it’s any coincidence that Riina was arrested that day.’
Riina had been betrayed by Balduccio Di Maggio. At least, that was the story. But evidence began to emerge that someone else was moving behind the scenes, and that someone may have been his long-term partner in crime, his rival for Luciano Liggio’s favour and
competitor for power, Bernardo Provenzano. Provenzano was always close to Ciancimino: perhaps he was the person Ciancimino had contacted to negotiate with the carabinieri behind the scenes. After all, it was in his interest to get rid of Riina. The deal on the table was simple, according to one theory: if Provenzano could stop the bombing, his freedom, and that of his closest associates, would be guaranteed. Colonel Mori has always denied that anyone offered Provenzano protection, at any price.
The first suspicions that Riina’s arrest had been part of a deal were raised when the Mafia managed to clear out his luxurious villa in via Bernini, Palermo, after the arrest.
After their leader was carted off, Brusca and Riina’s brother-in-law Leoluca Bagarella took charge, starting with the immediate evacuation of Riina’s wife and four children to safety and privacy in Corleone. Riina’s men watched the villa, waiting for the carabinieri to seal it off. But to Brusca’s amazement nothing happened. Eventually he sent his man Angelo La Barbera into the villa to remove the most inflammatory documents, hidden in a safe built into the wall; documents relating to contracting, as well as money, letters, accounts and legal files. La Barbera removed the whole safe with a pickaxe.
Again they waited for the police to arrive. When no one came, Brusca sent in a trusted contact who went through the place clearing out carpets, silver, jewellery, pictures – anything of value. Riina’s villa attested to his extremely expensive tastes. He had collected gold ingots and designer watches, ceramics and art. Brusca’s man took what he could and stored it all until he was himself arrested some time later (Riina’s son Giovanni reportedly confronted him in prison, saying that when the stuff had been cleared out of his warehouse, there were some pictures missing).
When the villa had been stripped of everything that looked important, La Barbera took a few men with him, chucked out everything they found and made a bonfire in the garden. The flames consumed several of la signora’s fur coats, some personal letters and photos, and her trousseau. She was furious, but La Barbera protested that those were his orders.
As soon as Riina was arrested, Caselli had ordered an immediate search of the villa in via Bernini, but the carabinieri had requested permission to keep the villa under surveillance, to see who came to call. It seemed like an excellent idea – except that no agents were sent to watch the villa, and no search was ever made. By the time the prosecutor’s office realized that the order had not been followed up, eighteen days had passed since Riina’s arrest. When officers finally entered the villa, it was not only empty but had been remodelled: walls had been demolished and rebuilt, everything had been hoovered and repainted. It was no longer the same place where Riina and his family had lived. The hole where the safe had been was blocked up and plastered over. Caselli was incandescent and ordered an immediate inquiry. Two senior carabinieri were investigated for aiding and abetting the Mafia: both Sergio De Caprio (known as Capitano Ultimo) and Mario Mori had exemplary records of arresting mafiosi, and their failure to search the villa was baffling.
Their trial was a media sensation: the two men responsible for arresting Riina found themselves in the dock for protecting him. Capitano Ultimo, who had been a national hero when he stopped Riina at a traffic light in Palermo, now had to defend himself. Prosecutors claimed that there must be some mysterious explanation for this oversight, but in the end both officers were found not guilty of any intention to pervert the course of justice. They even received an apology from the court. Although the judge commented that not to search the fugitive’s home was a professional misjudgement, it was found that no crime had been committed.
With the carabinieri exonerated, conspiracy theories focused on interference by the state. Years later, Giusy Vitale, sister of Riina’s faithful killer dogs Leonardo and Vito, claimed that inside Riina’s villa there had been ‘documents that, if they’d been discovered, would have put a bomb under the state. If the police had got hold of them, it would have been a total disaster.’
The Caltanissetta judges who examined the events of this whole extraordinary period in their sentence for the via d’Amelio bomb noted Brusca’s belief that ‘Ciancimino was playing a double game. In fact, he helped investigators capture Riina, probably with Provenzano’s
consent. This way the state could be seen to make a strong response to the assassinations, while allowing part of Cosa Nostra – the part less compromised in the investigations – to survive.’
Although Provenzano initially supported the strategy of violence, he may have already begun to conceive his new strategy. And while Riina was threatening more terrible violence, Provenzano may have been talking a different language, to other ears, behind his back.
There were rumours among men of honour that Provenzano was talking to the authorities, possibly doing some kind of deal. Some were calling him
sbirro
, ‘grass’. In a private moment Provenzano asked Giuffré whether he believed what people were saying. Giuffré, the inscrutable capo, assured the boss that no, he didn’t believe it.
Brusca would not want to give Provenzano credit for such a bold move. But he had no doubt that Riina’s arrest suited him. ‘Provenzano wanted to take Riina’s place.’
Was it possible that Provenzano would sell his troublesome friend when the going got tough? Riina, the peasant mafioso who took on the state, had finally been defeated – brought down by men on his own side, who could no longer go along with his violent strategy. Investigators set about recouping some of his ill-gotten fortune. Over the following months property and agricultural land worth
£
200 million were seized.
Not everyone gave credence to the rumour that Provenzano had ‘sold’ Riina, but it never quite went away. When Provenzano was arrested, his arrival at Terni prison was reportedly greeted by Riina’s son shouting ‘
sbirro
!’ Giovanni Riina apparently wanted to remind the inmates that the new prisoner had betrayed his father to the police.
It eventually emerged that the insult was an invention, a damaging rumour of the kind Provenzano himself specializes in. And, as damaging rumours often do, particularly in Cosa Nostra, the slur stuck. Some still believe the Boss of Bosses obtained his position by selling out his more powerful friends.