Mesagne, "La verita' del pentito"

Mesagne is a town with Messapian roots, located at just 11 km. (around six miles) in the province of Brindisi.

I have been in Mesagne two days ago in order to assist to the presentation of La verità del pentito, a book written by Giovanna Montanaro (Sperling & Kupfer, 2013).

The event has been held within an underground olive press, pretty close to the local Municipality.

Libera, a national anti-mafia movement, founded by Don Ciotti, has promoted the meeting.

Mario Dabbico, the coordinator of Libera Brindisi, is a gentle but passionate man.

I pay great respect to Mario and to his faith in values such as peace, legality and education.

I am so entranced by being in a such ancient olive press: heritage of the peasant civilisation.

Invited to discuss about justice and legality is the magistrate Marco Di Napoli (Procuratore capo della Repubblica di Brindisi).

Giovanna Montanaro narrates the story of a bad boy, Gaspare Spatuzza, killer of Brancaccio (Palermo).

Spatuzza has confessed of having been of one of the two killers who actually murdered Padre Puglisi, a free priest.

It is a sad story, though.

Spatuzza, life sentenced due to his involvement in more than 40 murders, had undertaken years ago a spiritual conversion which led him to reveal the truth about the murder of Paolo Borsellino, 

colleague and friend of Giovanni Falcone.

Spatuzza had got hired by the Graviano family, which ruled Brancaccio in Palermo.

The Procuratore Marco DI Napoli, questioned by the audience, explain what motivate people to become mafioso: “Usually, people like that carry on a handicap since the very young age.”.

“Once, one Mafia guy told me” the magistrate continues “that he was hired by such organisation  because he knew how to ride a motorbike”.

Another one said: “Sir, I just know how to shoot”.

In other words, the mob usually do not have great skills.

On the other hand, the leaders are tremendously smart, according to Marco Di Napoli.

During the ‘80ies and ‘90ies, Mesagne was the capital of the Apulian mafia: Sacra Corona Unita (SCU).

The SCU leader was Giuseppe Rogoli.

He tried to establish the Apulian mafia after having got the approval from 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia).

The project of SCU was to set a network of the several Mafia family settled down in Apulia (from Foggia till Lecce).  

However, the plot was undermined. first of all, by internal frictions among the SCU leaders.

Additionally, the judges had inflicted many life sentences to the SCU leaders, Rogoli included.

Talking about her book, Giovanna Montanaro points out that the murder of Paolo Borsellino is still obscure: 

1) the explosive used to kill Borsellino and his escort was Czechoslovakian;  

2) the Judge’sagenda has never been found; 

3) On the top of it, Borsellino was well aware of his imminent death.

The suspect that someone within the Italian institutions did not want Paolo Borsellino living long is strong.

Therefore, If you want to learn more about it, I strongly recommend you to reed this thrilling book.

Eventually, the meeting ends up quite late.

I leave not before having asked Giovanna Montanaro to sign my copy of La verità del pentito.

She is a charming lady.

Additionally, I promise her to e-mail her some pictures which I have taken tonight.

I love this job!