Borsellino and Falcone martyrs, Meloni tells EU-Celac summit

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 18 - The fight against organised crime is a key element of cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), Premier Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday.
    Combating organised crime "is another fundamental element of our cooperation, something on which" the EU and Latin America can "continue to work together", Meloni told the EU-Celac summit in Brussels. The premier also recalled that July 19 is a "symbolic date in Italy".
    "On July 19 31 years ago the mafia killed Judge Paolo Borsellino, who together with Judge Giovanni Falcone were two martyrs in the fight against the mafia," she said.
    They are also "two of the main actors to whom we owe much of what we know in the fight against organised crime", Meloni added.
    On Wednesday the premier will be in Palermo for official events to mark the 31st anniversary of the Via d'Amelio Cosa Nostra bombing in which anti-mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino and five members of his security detail were murdered.
    The attack took place just two months after the Mafia assassination of Borsellino's friend and colleague Giovanni Falcone, as well as his wife Francesca Morvillo and police officers Rocco Dicillo, Antonio Montinaro and Vito Schifani by a huge bomb detonated under their cars on the Palermo-airport highway.
    The leader of the centre-left opposition Democratic Party (Pd) Elly Schlein will also be in Palermo on Wednesday for separate events marking the anniversary.
    Photo: Then Youth Minister Giorgia Meloni in Palermo for the anniversary of the assassination of Paolo Borsellino on July 19, 2009. (ANSA).