Fighting mafia is priority - PM remembers slain prosecutor

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 19 - The "courage and commitment for justice and law and order" of anti-mafia prosecutor Paolo Borsellino and the five members of his security detail murdered in the 1992 Via D'Amelio bombing remain a "beacon of hope and determination for us all", Premier Giorgia Meloni said on Friday, the 32nd anniversary of the Cosa Nostra attack.
    "Fighting the mafia is an absolute priority" for the government, the prime minister said in a social media post.
    "Today marks the 32nd anniversary of the massacre of Via D'Amelio, a day that profoundly marked our nation", Meloni said of the bombing in Palermo that killed Borsellino and the members of his detail - Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, Walter Eddie Cosina, Agostino Catalano and Claudio Traina, "who sacrificed their lives in the fight against the mafia".
    The prime minister went on to say that it is "our duty to honour their memory" while "continuing to fight any form of crime and to defend the values of justice and freedom for which they lost their lives".
    "Italy doesn't forget", Meloni stressed.
    Italian President Sergio Mattarella said the "terrible massacre of Via D'Amelio, 57 days after the attack in Capaci", which killed another anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, also a magistrate, and three members of their security detail, "constituted the climax of the terrorist strategy conducted by the mafia" with "ruthless acts of war" aimed at submitting the State and society.
    "Institutions and citizens prevented it", the president stressed.
    Mattarella said the search for the "full truth" regarding the circumstances and masterminds of the attack was hindered by "diversions" that made the path to justice "long" - something that represents a "wound for our community".
    "The need for the truth cannot be suppressed in a democracy and giving it a positive response remains an indispensable duty", the president said.
    Mattarella added that Borsellino, along with Falcone, left a "precious heritage", not only in terms of anti-mafia investigations and trials but also by teaching the country that the mafia can be fought through education, culture, with the "coherence of behaviour, the rigour of institutions, social life".
    "These teachings continue to mark the duty of the Republic", concluded the head of State. (ANSA).