Dainotti murder 'symbolic' - prosecutor

(ANSA) - Palermo, May 22 - The murder in a Palermo street of Cosa Nostra boss Giuseppe Dainotti was "symbolic" like the murders 25 years ago of anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, Palermo Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi told reporters.
    "When it is necessary the Mafia once again shoots in a clear and symbolic way," he said.
    He said that killing Dainotti, "in the centre of Palermo, on May 22", three days before the Falcone anniversary, "can have various meanings".
    Italy will mark the 25th anniversary of Falcone's murder with a string of events on Wednesday, also commemorating his friend and colleague Borsellino, who was murdered two months later that year.
    Both crusading anti-Mafia magistrates were blown up by huge bombs - in the case of Falcone, his wife, and his police escort, planted under the Palermo-airport highway at Capaci, and in Borsellino's case a car bomb outside his mother's house, within the space of two months in 1992.
    The murders, and other fatal bombings of art sites in 1993, spurred a strong reaction from the State that led to the arrests of Corleone boss of bosses Totò Riina and his long-time co-boss, the late Bernardo Provenzano.
    Cosa Nostra has gone back in the shadows while reinforcing links to business and politics, former Falcone and Borsellino colleague and ex-Mafia National Prosecutor Pietro Grasso, the Senate Speaker, said on Italian TV Sunday night.
    But as Lo Voi said Monday, "as we have often said, whenever someone says that the Mafia is no longer there or that it has been defeated, something happens that confirms that the Mafia is always there".