Three police officers
were indicted Friday for allegedly covering up evidence in a
probe into the slaying of anti-mafia magistrate Paolo
Borsellino.
Fabrizio Mattei, Mario Bo and Michele Ribaudo were sent to
trial for aggravated calumny in the 1992 deaths of Borsellino
and his five police escorts.
The trio helped cook up evidence from fake informants that
led to the convictions of seven innocent people, a preliminary
hearings judge said.
Borsellino's daughter Fiammetta Borsellino said "we'll only
know the truth if those that know speak out and emerge from
omertà".
Fiammetta, who with her two brothers will stand as civil
plaintiffs in the trial, added she "could not understand" how a
previous prosecution led to the convictions of the seven.
Sicilian prosecutors have called the investigation into the
Borsellino killing "the biggest cover-up in Italian history".
On September 17 Palermo prosecutor Nino Di Matteo told the
judiciary's self-governing body that investigators have
"never been closer" to the truth on the July 1992 bomb slaying
of Borsellino,
"We are one step away from the truth about the Via d'Amelio
massacre," he told the Supreme Council of Magistrates.
"Never as now have we been closer to the truth. And that is
thanks to me and other magistrates".
Di Matteo went on: "it's not right that these magistrates
should be linked to cover-ups and that charge is a tool of those
who don't want progress to be made".
Di Matto said the removal from the bomb scene of Borsellino's
personal diary was the "first action of trying to throw
investigators off the track".
He said that the slain magistrate had noted down in it "very
serious things".
"And there is no doubt there was a negotiation in those days
between the ROS security police and (late boss of bosses
Salvatore) Riina with (son of mafia mayor Vito, Massimo)
Ciancimino playing go-between".
"Today it is known that Borsellino on July 15 spoke to his
wife of a high-ranking ROS officer who had been a friend of his
previously.
"The mafiosi carried out the massacre but the theft of the
red diary can't have been done by the person who pressed the
(detonator) button".
The magistrate, who is under round-the-clock police
protection, spoke of "very high prices" paid by himself and his
family in the search for the truth.
On July 19, the 26th anniversary of the assassination,
President Sergio Mattarella said that "honouring the memory
of magistrate Borsellino and the persons escorting him also
means not stopping to seek the truth on that massacre".
"26 years on," said Mattarella, "the memories and emotion for
the cowardly attack in Via d'Amelio (in Palermo) are still
alive".
Borsellino lost his life along with five officers in his
police escort: Agostino Catalano, Walter Eddie Cosina, Vincenzo
Li Muli, Emanuela Loi and Claudio Traina.
He was murdered by a massive car bomb outside his mother's
house two months after a huge bomb on the the highway to Palermo
airport killed his friend and colleague Giovanni Falcone.
Falcone died along with three bodyguards and his wife,
Italian magistrate Francesca Morvillo, on May 23, 1992.
Cosa Nostra bosses including the late Salvatore Totò Riina
and Bernardo Provenzano as well as Giovanni Brusca, have been
condemned for the killings, part of a Mafia reign of terror when
members of Italian institutions instituted tough prison
conditions, Italian prosecutors have said.
One of the mysteries linked to the Borsellino slaying is the
disappearance of a bag containing his personal diary,
investigative sources say.
Prosecutors are still trying to establish who stole it and
what exactly it contained.
There is also the shadow of alleged State-mafia talks over
the two bomb slayings of Falcone and Borsellino.
Prosecutors have said that those negotiations "accelerated"
Riina's decision to assassinate Borsellino.
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