Notes on what the investigating magistrate in Caltanissetta says is ‘historic’ and is worth knowing

To the Editor – I am writing regarding the article on “The Mafia and Public Contracts” by Ermes Antonucci, to whom I am dedicating an article in Il Giornale today (Friday); in short, I need not prove my esteem for him. What sets me apart from him, however, is a matter of great significance, because, in relation to a 644-page decree based on thousands of documents and drafted by a judge from Caltanissetta, I am also at odds with the journalistic dismissal of a reconstruction that I consider to be of historical significance. I am not afraid to say so. Antonucci speaks of a ‘monument to a preconceived thesis’, but when faced with Judge Santi Bologna’s fresco, re-emerging after thirty years of being painted over, it is like pointing out two cracks in the plaster and concluding that there is nothing to see.

I begin with the tedious detail. Santi Bologna did not dismiss the cases against three individuals: he dismissed case 2098/2022 against persons unknown for mass murders. Their cases form part of case 808/2024, as indicated on page 2. This is no small matter: it changes the subject on which the article is based. Then there is a portrayal – which I find inaccurate – of the previous judgements: they do not merely attest to Falcone and Borsellino’s interest in public contracts; the appeal judgement on Capaci identified a ‘contributing cause, of a preventive nature’ aimed at stopping Falcone; the Capaci bis judgement reiterated this reasoning; the Borsellino ter and quater judgements addressed the threat he posed to Mafia interests. The judge refers to these passages and concludes in favour of a ‘contributing cause (not the sole cause)’ of the two massacres. One may dispute this, but one cannot reduce it to a mere ‘deduction’. I wish to emphasise the tedious aspect: the picture presented of the meeting of 14 July 1992 is, in my view, incomplete; in addition to the witness statements, there is the conversation from 2024 in which Scarpinato prepares, with Natoli, for the hearing before the Anti-Mafia Commission, and, obviously, this does not resolve what happened in 1992, but concerns the formation of subsequent memories. Then there are the recovered audio tapes and the rough notes rediscovered in July 2025, which had been thought lost. There’s a lot of material. I mean: it’s one thing to say that no new evidence has emerged regarding the motive behind the massacres; it’s quite another to dismiss documents that help reconstruct how the investigations were conducted, and how, for thirty years, their story was falsely recounted.

The crucial point is precisely the historical one. History is not written by court rulings alone, but also through them. As even the unheeded Antonio Di Pietro (yes, I am quoting him) pointed out, ‘Mani Pulite’ originated in Sicily; indeed, it was even worse than that, because the third leg of the table was the Mafia, whilst another supported national companies in which Totò Riina held shares. This has been proven. Falcone and Borsellino discovered this when ‘Mani Pulite’ did not even exist, and they were killed in ‘stabilising’ massacres (Borsellino’s words regarding the Capaci massacre) in a world of which even the Sicilian public prosecutors were a part. What relevance does the beleaguered trial on the ‘Trattativa’ have? Santi Bologna’s ‘reasonable prospect of conviction’ outlines a procedural decision; it does not exhaust what a democracy must know about its own past. His decree did what the Court of Cassation did in the Andreotti trial: the historical significance was not confined to the operative part of the judgement, and it is the same criterion that now requires us to read the Caltanissetta documents by distinguishing between what warrants a charge and what documents an era.

The closure of the ‘Mafia-appalti’ case reconstructs a period in history, forces us to re-examine the narrative, goes beyond individual criminal liability (which was not its aim, I acknowledge) and addresses the isolation of Falcone and Borsellino and the internal obstacles to their investigations, as well as the contrast between the conflicts they experienced and the harmony that followed their deaths. Even the way Caselli’s public prosecutor’s office has portrayed itself (since 1993) forms part of this story: those who for decades have presented themselves as the heirs of Falcone and Borsellino must be open to questioning about the relationship they had with them and with their work whilst they were alive.

The quest for the truth has been going on for 34 years: it is not as though Borsellino’s family had been waiting for this government to raise the issue, nor can they be automatically lumped in with the right wing – let alone me: the convergence between the Anti-Mafia Commission, the Caltanissetta Public Prosecutor’s Office and journalistic work offers an opportunity to piece together documents and responsibilities that had remained separate until now. To reduce the ‘Mafia-contracts’ affair to a counter-narrative of the ‘negotiations’ is to attribute to it a party-political origin that I couldn’t care less about: it is not as though only convictions not time-barred are needed for documents to change the assessment of a historical period. The documents also shed light on the contrast between the way Falcone and Borsellino were treated (whilst alive) and the way they were treated after their deaths, and this takes precedence over government expediency and outlasts the outcomes of the trials. This absurd country has a right to know the history of that entire period, even when the documents contradict those who, for thirty years, have spoken in the name of its dead. Best regards.