(see related)
The whole nation is paying homage to
anti-mafia prosecutor Paolo Borsellino and the five members of
his security detail murdered in the 1992 Via D'Amelio bombing,
President Sergio Mattarella said on Wednesday, the 31st
anniversary of the Cosa Nostra attack.
"On the anniversary of the Via D'Amelio massacre, the Republic
bows to the memory of Paolo Borsellino, a magistrate of
extraordinary valour and courage, and the agents of his security
escort - Emanuela Loi, Agostino Catalano, Vincenzo Li Muli,
Walter Eddie Cosina, Claudio Traina - who died with him in the
service of democratic institutions," Mattarella said in a
statement.
"That barbaric massacre, carried out with inhuman ferocity, hit
the entire Italian population and remains indelible in our
collective civil conscience".
He paid tribute to how Borsellino and his friend and colleague
Giovanni Falcone, who was murdered two months earlier, had
proven that the mafia existed and shown that it "could be
defeated.
"Their example invites us to overcome indifference and combat
the grey areas of of complicity with the same firmness with
which illegality is fought," the head of State said.
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