Judges From Italy

"In my opinion, Italy's mistake was to always say, “Let's wait for the verdicts.” No, we're not waiting for the verdicts. [...] If I invite my neighbor to dinner and I see him leaving my house with my silverware in his pockets, I am not obliged to wait for the Supreme Court's ruling before inviting him to dinner; I stop inviting him to dinner immediately."

"I certainly don't want to be remembered as the president of the ANM who abdicated the defense of the independence of the judiciary. Mr. Minister, I hope you don't want to be remembered as the one who tried to violate it."

"I envy university professors: they are paid to ask questions to people who know nothing and who do everything they can to say something, while I question people who know everything and do everything they can to say nothing at all."

"In the past, I was criticized for telling a delegation of French magistrates that with Mani Pulite we selected the most corrupt, like lions that prey on the slowest gazelles, like antibiotics that create antibiotic-resistant strains. That's how it went. If you stop the treatment halfway through, these are the results. And unfortunately, we had to stop the treatment halfway through."

"Abroad, it takes courage to commit a crime; in Italy, it takes courage to remain honest."

"In Italy, it pays to break the law because the law protects those who break it much more than those who suffer from its violations."

"In Italy, it pays to be a criminal."

"The problem is not so much that there are 200,000 lawyers, but that there are 15,000 more every year. And since they practice law for 40 years on average, 15,000 times 40 equals 600,000 lawyers. I don't believe that this country's gross national product can support six hundred thousand lawyers, but I'm under no illusion that a ruling class that has failed to get the better of the weak taxi drivers' lobby will be able to get the better of the much more powerful lawyers' lobby."

"The progressives will destroy us, and they will do so more cunningly than those on the center-right: without being noticed, without shouting, and this time without even encountering obstacles from the other side. Everyone will agree when it comes to disarming us."

"Do judiciary trials take too long? Because there are too many of them; if there were fewer, they would take less time."

"They say that Mani Pulite was a CIA conspiracy. And at the same time that it saved the communists: but then did the CIA save the communists?"

"(About Rocco Chinnici) [...] neither general indifference nor the dangerous and widespread temptation to coexist with the mafia phenomenon—often bordering on collusion—ever discouraged this man, who had, as he once told me, a “religion of work.”"

"At least, I said, if he has to be eliminated, the public must know about it, must be aware of it. The anti-Mafia pool must die in front of everyone, it must not die in silence."

"It must be [...] attributed to yet another recognition of Giuliano's investigative skills if what has only now emerged, following complex and exhausting preliminary investigations, had been accurately intuited and framed by him several years earlier. Without wishing to criticize anyone, it must be acknowledged that if other state bodies had adequately understood and supported Giuliano's intelligent investigative efforts, the organizational structures of the mafia would probably not have become so powerful and many brutal murders, including that of Giuliano himself, would not have been committed."

"It is beautiful to die for what you believe in; those who are afraid die every day, those who are not afraid die only once."

"I accept, I have always accepted more than the risk [...] the consequences of the work I do, the place where I do it and, I would say, even how I do it. I accept it because I chose, at a certain point in my life, to do it and I could say that I knew from the beginning that I had to run these risks. The feeling of being a survivor and of finding myself, as is believed, in extreme danger, is a feeling that cannot be separated from the fact that I still believe deeply in the work I do, I know it is necessary for me to do it, I know it is necessary for many others to do it with me. And I also know that we all have a moral duty to continue doing it without letting ourselves be influenced by the feeling, or even, I would say, the certainty, that all this may cost us dearly."

"The fight against the mafia, the first problem to be solved in our beautiful and unfortunate land, should not have been merely a detached act of repression, but a cultural and moral movement involving everyone, especially the younger generations, who are best suited to immediately appreciate the beauty of the fresh scent of freedom that makes one reject the stench of moral compromise, indifference, contiguity, and therefore complicity."

"It is normal for every person to feel fear, the important thing is that it is accompanied by courage. You must not let fear overwhelm you, otherwise it becomes an obstacle that prevents you from moving forward."

"I never asked to deal with the Mafia. I got involved by chance. And then I stayed because of a moral issue. People were dying around me."

"I didn't like Palermo, so I learned to love it, because true love means loving what you don't like so that you can change it."

"Talk about the mafia. Talk about it on the radio, on television, in the newspapers. But talk about it."

"Politics and the mafia are two powers that live off controlling the same territory: either they wage war against each other or they come to an agreement."

"If young people deny it their consent, even the all-powerful and mysterious mafia will vanish like a nightmare."

"Giovanni, I have prepared the speech to be given in church after your death: "There are many dickheads: dickheads who dream of emptying the Mediterranean with a bucket... those who dream of melting the polar ice caps with a match... but today, ladies and gentlemen, before you, in this expensive mahogany coffin, lies the biggest dickhead of them all... A man who dreamed of nothing less than defeating the mafia by enforcing the law.""

"[...] judges will continue to work and overexpose themselves and, in some cases, end up like Rosario Livatino [murdered by the Mafia] like so many others, politicians will appear at funerals proclaiming unity of purpose to solve this problem, and after a few months we will be back to square one."

"My father loved to use a manual razor to shave rather than an electric razor because that way he was forced to look at himself in the mirror every morning. Looking at his own face every day, if ever there was a need, helped him convince himself that certain things just couldn't be done."

"I remember perfectly well that on Saturday, July 18, 1992, I went for a walk with my husband along the Carini seafront, without being followed by our bodyguards. Paolo told me that it would not be the Mafia that would kill him, whom he was not afraid of, but that it would be his colleagues and others who would allow this to happen. At that moment, he was both discouraged and certain of what he was telling me."

"Lirio Abbate, Peter Gomez, I complici: Tutti gli uomini di Bernardo Provenzano da Corleone al Parlamento, Fazi Editore, Roma, 2007. ISBN 9788881127863"

"Beppe Grillo, Santi laici: Storie di uomini e donne che hanno dato la vita per salvare la nostra democrazia, Rizzoli, Milano, 2011. ISBN 978-88-17-05255-9"

"Umberto Lucentini, Agnese, Lucia, Manfredi and Fiammetta Borsellino, Paolo Borsellino. Il valore di una vita, Mondadori, Milano, 1994, p. 12. ISBN 9788804379089"

"I am not a member of the M5S, but I find the attacks on Grillo exaggerated and unfair. He has denounced the paralysis and impotence of Parliament, which cannot be denied. Parliament, as the body that passes laws for the common good, does not actually exist. This is a bitter reality, not an insult to Parliament. Laura Boldrini should not take offense, she should take note. I would like to know what laws Parliament has passed in its first few months! And what laws it is discussing that affect young people and employment. None! The fake law that sought resources by repealing public funding of political parties is not due to come into force until 2017! Shameful!"

"(Regarding Antonio Ingroia's political candidacy}} Fairness is the first rule that a magistrate must follow. In the specific case of the former deputy prosecutor of Palermo, with an investigation involving the mafia such as the one he has just left behind, the situation is even more delicate. [...] The Sicilian magistrate's decision not only raises suspicions that the entire operation was merely a ploy to enter politics, but also risks undermining the credibility of the entire team of people who worked with him."

"In reality, I was working with Vittorio Occorsio on several cases of kidnapping for ransom, including the Danesi kidnapping, the Ortolani kidnapping, the Andreuzzi kidnapping, [the kidnapping] Francisci kidnapping, and I remember perfectly well that a few days earlier he had asked me to issue several arrest warrants against the defendants; one of these defendants was a member of the P2 Lodge. He had also identified links between kidnappers, black terrorists, and members of the P2 Lodge, and had expressed his concerns. He had a great deal of experience because he had already investigated part of the trial for the Piazza Fontana massacre. At first, he had been misled, unfortunately by the secret services, but then he had got back on the right track. I also remember that on the morning he was killed, half an hour before the murder, I called him to ask his opinion on a request for provisional release that had been submitted by a defendant who was a member of P2, and he told me that he would express a negative opinion."

"Ferdinando Imposimato, La repubblica delle stragi impunite, Newton Compton, Roma, 2013. ISBN 978-88-541-5499-5"

"The history of massacres originates in the events that took place at the end of the Second World War with the clash between two opposing blocs. [...] Our country, in the Yalta partition, became a kind of American colony, a nation with limited sovereignty due to interference from overseas. [...] New allies gathered around the hegemonic interests of the USA, happy to endorse or implement the strategy of tension in Italy. Alongside the OSS, the CIA, and the secret services, there were Ordine Nuovo, republicans, the Christian Democratic right, Vatican hierarchies, American Freemasonry, the Propaganda 2 lodge, part of the armed forces and the Interior Ministry apparatus, which were sometimes joined by openly criminal organizations such as the Mafia, Camorra, 'ndrangheta and Banda della Magliana."

"President Napolitano, democracy is majority rule that respects the rights of the opposition, not tyranny of the majority that disregards the opposition, as is currently the case. Among the functions of the President of the Republic provided for in Article 87 of the Constitution, there is no provision for accusing the opposition of sectarianism. I thank the M5S for its fair and responsible opposition and its battles in defense of equal social rights, decent work, law enforcement, the independence of the judiciary, public education, and political ethics."

"The murder of Moro was carried out by the Red Brigades, but also and above all at the behest of Giulio Andreotti, Francesco Cossiga and Undersecretary w:it:Nicola Lettieri."

"The KGB was directly involved in the kidnapping of Moro. Cossiga and Andreotti knew where he was being held prisoner, but prevented General Dalla Chiesa from intervening. Falcone and Borsellino? The Gladio and the CIA were involved in those incidents. [...] The CIA was the armed wing of this policy, which sought by all means to eliminate a figure who jeopardized the security of the Western bloc and could cause communists to infiltrate the Italian government. Moreover, the CIA controlled the Italian secret services, as Maletti [former SISDE general] has publicly admitted. The CIA financed them with a budget of $500 million per year. [...] Of course, it also financed Gladio. The CIA even bought the Gladio base in Sardinia [the Capo Marrargiu training center]. [...] Yes, Cossiga and Andreotti knew. There is a document dated March 2, 1978, which I only learned about 25 years later and which I publish in my book as proof. Dalla Chiesa also learned of Moro's place of imprisonment and, from early April, wanted to intervene to free him. When the base in Via Gradoli was burned down, it was done precisely to prevent Dalla Chiesa from intervening. The general was ordered to abandon the camp, then he talked about it with the journalist Mino Pecorelli, who wrote about it. Both knew and both were killed."

"Two months ago, I was in Palermo at an ANM meeting. I will never forget that day. The kindest words, especially from the left, from Md, were these: Falcone sold himself to political power. w:it:Mario Almerighi called him a political enemy. Now, I say that it is one thing to criticize the Superprosecutor's Office. It is quite another, as the CSM, intellectuals, and the so-called anti-Mafia front have done, to say that Giovanni was no longer free from political power. Giovanni was prevented from conducting mafia trials in his own city. So he chose the only possible path, the Ministry of Justice, to ensure that his project would be realized: a unified structure against the mafia. And it was a revolution."

"(During the commemoration of Falcone in the main hall of the Palace of Justice in Milan}} You killed Giovanni Falcone. With your indifference. With your criticism... You slandered him. You distrusted him. And now some of you even have the nerve to attend his funeral..."

"Giuseppe Ayala, Chi ha paura muore ogni giorno. I miei anni con Falcone e Borsellino, Mondadori, 2008. ISBN 9788804580683"

"The appointment was set for early afternoon on Friday, May 22, at Ciampino airport. Falcone, as was often the case, would give me a ride to Palermo on the government plane."

"(About the Milan judiciary during Mani pulite investigation) A judiciary that must be protected from any attempt to delegitimize it, in order to maintain its prerogative as an institution committed to restoring legality."

"The corpse of Falcone was pounced upon by jackals and hyenas whom Giovanni knew and whom I also know."

"Alfredo Morvillo, the magistrate brother of his wife Francesca, introduced us in 1981. We were at the Palace of Justice in Palermo, where we had a coffee. We chatted and immediately hit it off. From then on, we saw each other regularly: at least a couple of times a week, we would meet for dinner with our wives."

"Falcone is praised without being studied. Anyone who talks about the Mafia mentions him, often inappropriately. When he was alive, he was very lonely. The magistrates who supported him could be counted on the fingers of one hand, while most criticized him for his alleged media protagonism."

"Bruno [Trentin] said to me, “Let's invite Giovanni to dinner, we have to celebrate.” He accepted. We talked about current political events, South Tyrolean irredentism, Mahler, who had had a house there, and Giovanni shrank into his chair: he was bored. At one point, I mentioned a news story about Stefano Bontate's son, and at that moment he suddenly perked up, sitting up straight in his chair."

"He only talked about the Mafia. He never showed the slightest interest in my life. He never asked me where I came from, what I had studied, nothing at all. He was single-minded, which is where his proverbial efficiency and professionalism came from."

"The vultures and hyenas that Giovanni knew, and that I also know, pounced on Falcone's corpse."

"Maierovitch, a man with a soft voice and owl-like features, became a prominent figure in the early 1980s when he collaborated with Giovanni Falcone in his successful efforts to track down fugitive mafia members. Together, the two convinced Tommaso Buscetta to return to Italy and become a state witness in the so-called maxi-trial of the Sicilian mafia leadership. In January 1992, thanks to his testimony, some 350 mafia bosses were convicted. Falcone and his colleague, magistrate Paolo Borsellino, are the titans of the anti-mafia struggle worldwide. They were assassinated in Sicily two months apart in 1992, shortly after the maxi-trial verdict was confirmed, and their deaths shook and ultimately dismantled the Italian political system. Both had (rightly) assumed that the most important figures in the Sicilian mafia enjoyed the protection of the highest political hierarchies in Rome. Maierovitch tells me about his dinners with Falcone and how they worked to protect the great turncoat Buscetta from possible murder or suicide. (He almost succeeded in attempting suicide while under the protection of the Brazilian judge.) At first, Maierovitch smiles as he remembers his Italian friend, but after a while he begins to shed silent tears: a fitting tribute to Falcone (after whom Maierovitch named his Institute for the Fight Against Crime), whose charisma and commitment to justice, in the face of Rome's corrupt ruling class, made him a popular hero throughout Italy and among all those who fight crime around the world."