The investigation into the Falcone and Borsellino massacres was closed due to lack of evidence

First Giovanni Falcone, then, after his death, Paolo Borsellino were intent on getting to the bottom of the investigations into mafia infiltration in large contracts. Their work proves it. This is demonstrated by the many public statements made. Both worked in a climate of hostility and marginalization: that is, they were left alone by their colleagues. And it is in this context that the massacres in which they lost their lives took place.

These are the conclusions reached by the investigating judge of Caltanissetta Santi Bologna, who was forced, however, to shelve the line of investigation against unknown persons on the attacks on the two magistrates who saw the motive for their elimination precisely in the mafia-procurement dossier. The provision with which the judge, accepting the prosecutor's request, closes this chapter of the investigation into the '92 massacres is more than 600 pages long. And it alternates the reconstruction of the investigative activities and the arguments of the Prosecutor's Office with observations of the investigating judge himself.

A complex operation which, however, leads to a clear conclusion: "the analysis carried out, while highlighting the hostile 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 themselves and Borsellino (the relationship 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 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".

However, due to the statute of limitations of the contested crime - aggravated aiding and abetting - the proceedings opened against the former prosecutors Gioacchino Natoli and Giuseppe Pignatone, accused of having covered up the mafia-procurement dossier in the interest of entrepreneurs close to Cosa Nostra, another tranche of the maxi investigation into the massacres. Natoli was also responsible for slander, but for the judge there was no malice. However, Bologna spares no criticism of the two former prosecutors, defining as "anomalous" the way in which they handled the proceedings opened on the hands of gangs in large public works.

And in the very long provision there is also no shortage of jabs at another former prosecutor, Roberto Scarpinato, now a senator of the M5s and member of the Anti-Mafia commission, criticized for having primed Natoli, his former colleague, before he was heard at Palazzo San Macuto. "What is necessary to point out here - writes the judge - is the misleading activity that Senator Scarpinato may be carrying out towards Doctor Natoli". Words that trigger the attack of the center-right members in the Anti-Mafia.

Fdi speaks of the "very serious responsibilities" of the five-star senator while the vice-president of the Commission D'Attis (FI) defines his behavior as "disturbing".

However, Bologna returns several times to Falcone and Borsellino's interest in procurement investigations. "It is false to maintain that the relations between Falcone and the mafia-procurement proceedings were limited to the mere receipt of the note dated 16.02.1991 by the magistrate. - he writes - In light of all this it is therefore clear that Pignatone lied when during the hearing at the CSM he stated that 'Falcone never dealt with this report because he received it, put it in the safe and left'". And, adds the investigating judge, "beyond any reasonable doubt, Borsellino's interest in studying the topic further is proven".

Bologna then speaks of "ambiguous relationships of some magistrates of the Palermo Prosecutor's Office of those years (emblematically the chief prosecutor Giammanco) and of the mismanagement of some proceedings which affected the most vital interests of organized crime in relation to the procurement sector".

Falcone and Borsellino - according to the magistrate - were "perceived, not only within a part (unfortunately not so small) of the judiciary, but also outside the judicial order (and therefore also by the members of a criminal clan with collusion and closeness at all levels that Cosa Nostra, especially in that historical period, possessed) as the last custodians of a working method and of an active and energetic conception in the fight against Cosa Nostra".