The mafioso Giovanni Brusca, the man of the Capaci massacre, the murderer of women and children who operated under the directives of Salvatore Riina, has left the prison for good. But also the collaborator of justice who revealed to the magistrates of all the prosecutors of Italy the secrets and background of Cosa Nostra, not only of the military wing, but also of the one that has had contact with the political and business world.
Today was the last day in prison for Brusca. Rebibbia’s doors opened wide in the afternoon to close behind her. He served all the sentence that had been inflicted on him, and unlike other collaborators of justice, he expiated the sentence in his cell.
Now he is a free man, subjected to controls and protection, but free. Technically, however, he remains subject to four years of probation. So the Milan Court of Appeal decided, the last to rule on the convicted person in relation to the most recent trial.
There has never been a collaboration with justice more discussed than that of Giovanni Brusca. Arrested by state police officers on May 20, 1996 in a villa near Agrigento, where the boss was with his brother Enzo and their respective wives and children, he obtained a repentant “license” in March 2000 after long controversies.
When, twenty-five years ago, the news was published that his partner and son were subjected to the urgent protection measures reserved for the families of the collaborators of justice, the then defender of the boss, the lawyer Vito Ganci, revealed that he had received from the witnessed his confidences on a “plot” in which he wanted to involve men from the institutions.
Brusca had named his defender, among others, the name of the former president of the Chamber Luciano Violante. It was a plan devised by Brusca himself to discredit the anti-mafia, the collaborators of justice and create difficulties in important mafia trials. This idea was never implemented. But to confirm the plan of the false repentance was the brother, with whom Giovanni Brusca had agreed with gestures during a hearing of a trial, so that he too would pretend to be repentant and support what his brother declared.
Later Giovanni Brusca himself admitted the circumstance.
The actual collaboration was marked by a long inner struggle. “Mine is not an easy choice. The history of my family weighs heavily, having to accuse others, the judgment that my father will give of me », Giovanni Brusca said. His father, Bernardo Brusca, who died in prison, was the head of the San Giuseppe Jato clan, and was an authoritative exponent of the dome. Giovanni had inherited its mafia “prestige”.
In the long interrogations before the magistrates of Palermo, Caltanissetta and Florence, who also dealt with the massacres of 1992 and 1993, the boss admitted his participation in the attack on Giovanni Falcone, in numerous excellent crimes and in the killing of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the eleven-year-old son of the repentant Mario Santo Di Matteo, strangled and dissolved in acid in revenge against his father who had talked to the magistrates.
He recalled the meetings in which the criminal strategy of Cosa Nostra was decided, accused other bosses, spoke of the “adjustments” of the trials. In addition to reconstructing a long chain of blood, Brusca also spoke of the relations between the Cosa Nostra, politics and the vast gray area of the supporters. In 2002, after long and bureaucratic authorizations, the mafioso got married in prison with his partner, with whom he had a son.
In the past years he had obtained the authorization of the judges of the surveillance court of Rome, thanks to the “good behavior”, to enjoy a few days’ premium permits. Now the end of his sentence has arrived for him thanks to a final allowance of 45 days of early release, decided by the surveillance court of Rome and received by the judges of Milan.
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