The investigation into the mafia and procurement linked to the Capaci and Via D'Amelio massacres has been closed

The line of investigation, against unknown persons, into the Capaci and Via D'Amelio massacres, which cost the lives of judges Giovanni Falcone, Francesca Morvillo, Paolo Borsellino and the agents of the magistrates' escorts, was closed by the investigating judge of Caltanissetta Santi Bologna.

This concerns the investigation for aggravated aiding and abetting the mafia against the former prosecutors Giuseppe Pignatone and Gioacchino Natoli and the general of Finance Stefano Screpanti accused of having covered up the investigation into mafia infiltration in large public works linked to the so-called mafia-procurement dossier. The crime in question, committed according to the accusation in the early 1990s, would now be time-barred. Natoli was also under investigation for slander: in this case the reason for the dismissal would be the lack of malice. The judge's decision follows another important dismissal: that of the so-called mafia-procurement investigation line against unknown persons. Therefore, the tranche of investigations which saw the motive for the 1992 attacks in the risk that magistrates Falcone and Borsellino would delve deeper into the trail of Cosa Nostra's infiltration into public works was concluded.

The line is still open

The Nissena prosecutor's office itself requested the dismissal last April. However, the tranche of investigation for aiding and abetting aggravated by having aided the mafia (prescribed crime) which sees former magistrates Giuseppe Pignatone and Gioacchino Natoli under investigation remains open. Natoli also responds to slander. According to the investigators, they covered up the so-called mafia-procurement dossier, thus favoring the mafia entrepreneurs. In this context, the attack on Judge Paolo Borsellino would have taken place, to be eliminated, according to this hypothesis, out of fear that he could deepen the investigations into the infiltration of Cosa Nostra into large contracts.

In-depth analysis

Massacres of '92, prosecutors ask for investigation into mafia and procurement to be closed

Gip: "Hostile climate against Falcone and Borsellino"

"The analysis carried out, while highlighting the hostile and marginalizing climate in which doctors Falcone and Borsellino found themselves operating within the Palermo Prosecutor's Office in the two-year period 1990-1992 and while highlighting the sidereal distance existing between their professional capacity and that of many other magistrates of their contemporaries, who found themselves operating in relation to proceedings which touched on one of the topics of greatest interest for Falcone and Borsellino themselves (the report between Cosa Nostra and the public procurement system) did not allow the identification of any independently persuasive piece of evidence that could lead to the identification of specific subjects among the magistrates or among the exponents of the political-business world linked to them who could be registered as moral (and even more material) competitors in relation to the two massacres". It is one of the passages of the decree with which the investigating judge of Caltanissetta Santi Bologna closed the proceedings against unknown persons who saw the investigation into the infiltration of Cosa Nostra in large contracts as the motive for the 1992 attacks which cost the lives of magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and their escorts. "Conclusively, for all the reasons reviewed so far, the elements acquired do not allow us to formulate any reasonable prediction of conviction", concludes the investigating judge after having examined the request for dismissal formulated by the Nissena Prosecutor's Office itself.

In-depth analysis

Paolo Borsellino, 34 years ago the mafia massacre in via D'Amelio