The Sicilian Mafia declare war to the Italian State (1992-1994)

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Cosa Nostra in Sicily enjoyed a relative calm until the early 1980s because it "officially" did not exist, then thanks to brave servants of the State who gave their lives to fight it like the regional comunist party secretary Pio La Torre murdered on April 30, 1982 and the prefect of Palermo, General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, murdered on September 3, was approved the
Law no. 646/1982, better known as the Rognoni - La Torre law, that introduced the crime of mafia-type criminal association into the Italian penal code.

The law is important because after the 1982 every criminal that used his belonging to the mafia to commit crimes risked more severe sentences than normal criminals and the mandatory confiscation of all assets resulting from the criminal activity.

“Cosa più brutta della confisca dei beni non c’è […]. Quindi la cosa migliore è quella di andarsene”. (Francesco Inzerillo)
"There is nothing worse that the confiscation of property, so the best thing to do is go away"

Inzerillo was one of the mobsters that fled from Sicily because was in the losers of the Seconfd Mafia War.

Then come the Maxi Trial that lasted from 10 February 1986 (the day of the first instance trial) to 30 January 1992 (the day of the final sentence of the Court of Cassation).

The organization of the attack against the State was decided during some restricted meetings of the "Regional Commission" which took place near Enna in September-October 1991 (attended by Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, Giuseppe Madonia and Benedetto Santapaola), in which a program of terrorist actions against the state was established that had to be claimed by a fake terrorist organization called "Falange Armata":

Immediately after, during a meeting of the "Provincial Commission" held in December 1991 (attended by Salvatore Riina, Matteo Motisi, Giuseppe Farinella, Giuseppe Graviano, Carlo Greco, Pietro Aglieri, Michelangelo La Barbera, Salvatore Cancemi, Giovanni Brusca, Raffaele Ganci, Nino Giuffrè, Giuseppe Montalto), was decided and elaborated a "restricted" massacre plan, which provided for the murder of historical enemies of the Cosa Nostra (the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino) and of characters who turned out to be unreliable, first of all Salvo Lima but also the politicians Calogero Mannino, Claudio Martelli, Salvo Andò, Carlo Vizzini and Sebastiano Purpura.

On January 30, 1992 the Court of Cassation confirmed the sentence of the Maxiprocesso which sentenced Riina and many other bosses to life imprisonment : ​​following this sentence, in February-March 1992 restricted meetings of the "Provincial Commission" (at which participated Riina, Salvatore Biondino, Raffaele Ganci, Giovanni Brusca, Michelangelo La Barbera, Salvatore Cancemi , in which it was decided to start the attacks and new targets were established to hit.

The Preparations for the Massacres

In the same period, a fire group composed of mafiosi from Brancaccio and the province of Trapani (Giuseppe Graviano, Matteo Messina Denaro, Vincenzo Sinacori, Lorenzo Tinnirello, Cristofaro Cannella, Francesco Geraci) moved to Rome to kill Judge Falcone, the minister Claudio Martelli and the television presenter Maurizio Costanzo, due to his strong anti-mafia commitment repeatedly expressed in his broadcasts.
The explosives and the weapons (rifles, pistols, Kalašnikov) necessary for these attacks were procured by Matteo Messina Denaro and entrusted to Giovanbattista Coniglio (mafioso from Mazara del Vallo), who hid them in an interspace made in his truck to transport them to Rome, where they were unloaded and hidden in the basement of the home of Antonio Scarano (drug dealer from Calabrian origins linked to Messina Denaro), who also procured an apartment to house the fire group. After some stalking in the center of Rome, the group did not track down Judge Falcone and Minister Martelli, thus deciding to fall back on Costanzo.
However Riina ordered Sinacori to suspend everything and return to Sicily because "they had found more important things down there".

The Massacres Begin

12 March 1992 a killing crew composed by Salvatore Biondino, Francesco Onorato, Salvatore Biondo, Simone Scalici, Giovan Battista Ferrante, Giovanni D'Angelo killed the honorable Salvo Lima in Mondello, on the eve of the political elections.
Two days later, an anonymous phone call arrived at the ANSA headquarters in Turin claimed the Lima murder in the name of the "Falange Armata".

23 May a killing crew composed by Giovanni Brusca, Antonino Gioè, Gioacchino La Barbera, Pietro Rampulla, Leoluca Bagarella, Domenico and Raffaele Ganci, Salvatore Cancemi, Giovan Battista Ferrante, Salvatore Biondo, Antonino Troia, Giovanni Battaglia carried out a bomb attack along the A29 motorway, in the area of Capaci, in which judge Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and three police officers were killed.
In the same evening of the attack in Capaci, an anonymous phone call claimed responsibility for the massacre in the name of the "Falange Armata".

8 June the Council of Ministers approved the decree-law of June 8,1992, n. 306 known as "Scotti-Martelli" (also "Falcone decree"), which tightened the requirements of article 41 bis on the subject of "hard prison" reserved for prisoners for mafia crimes.
The next day, an anonymous phone call arrived at the ANSA headquarters in Palermo in the name of "Falange Armata" threatened that "the prison should not be touched".

According to the statements of the collaborators of justice made a few years later, the murders of Lima and Falcone were carried out precisely in that period to damage Senator Giulio Andreotti, who was considered one of the most accredited candidates for the office of President of the Republic but, during the days of the voting in May, the Capaci massacre oriented the choice of parliamentarians towards Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.

At the end of June, Riina suspended the preparation of an attack against the Honorable Calogero Mannino and particularly insisted on speeding up the killing of judge Paolo Borsellino and carrying it out in a sensational manner;
On July 19, a killing crew formed by Giuseppe Graviano, Cristofaro Cannella, Francesco Tagliavia, Lorenzo Tinnirello, Stefano and Domenico Ganci, Salvatore Biondino, Giovan Battista Ferrante, Salvatore Biondo carried out a bomb attack in via d'Amelio in Palermo, in which Judge Borsellino and five escort officers were killed, injuring twenty-three people.

The same day, an anonymous phone call in the name of "Falange Armata" reached the ANSA headquarters in Palermo and claimed responsibility for the massacre.
Following the attack in via d'Amelio, the "Scotti-Martelli" decree was immediately converted into law and the 41 bis regime applied to about 500 mobsters in prison, of which 100 were transferred en masse to the Asinara and Pianosa maximum security prisons; in the following days, the Amato government started the "Operation Sicilian Vespers", with which 7000 soldiers were sent to Sicily to guard sensitive targets.

On September 17, a killing crew formed by Giovanni Brusca, Leoluca Bagarella, Antonino Gioè, Santino Di Matteo, Gioacchino La Barbera killed Ignazio Salvo, an entrepreneur and mafioso from Salemi who had been linked to the Honorable Lima and considered he too now unreliable.
In the same period, Riina commissioned Brusca to organize another bomb attack against judge Pietro Grasso because, according to him, another "hit" was needed to "soften" the State.However the murder was postponed.

Furthermore, between October and November, Giovanni Brusca and Antonino Gioè commissioned Santo Mazzei (mafioso di Catania) to place an artillery shell in the Boboli Gardens in Florence in order to create social alarm and panic in order to condition the institutions in the perspective of benefits for prisoners in prison referred to in article 41 bis: however the bullet was not found immediately but only at a later time because the anonymous phone call, made by Mazzei himself to claim the fact in the name of the initials "Falange Armata ", was not received.

On January 15, 1993 Riina was arrested together with Salvatore Biondino.
According to some sources Riina was "sacrificed" by Bernardo Provenzano because he attracted too much attention to the Cosa Nostra, moreover the fact that once Riina was arrested, his villa was not immediately searched until a day later raises questions, and
Sergio De Caprio known as the Capitano Ultimo the head of the team that followed and arrested Riina was accused of complicity with the mafia but was later acquitted.

In the following days, the bosses Raffaele Ganci, Michelangelo La Barbera and Salvatore Cancemi met with Giovanni Brusca to organize other possible attacks in Sicily against men of the State; however Ganci, La Barbera and Cancemi decided that "it was appropriate to stay quiet".

Between January and April, a series of meetings took place near Santa Flavia and Bagheria, in which attacks to be carried out outside Sicily were discussed as Ganci, Cancemi and La Barbera did not agree: in particular, during the meetings, he spoke of attacks on the Tower of Pisa or spreading syringes infected with HIV on the beaches of Rimini to create social alarm;
Bagarella also informed the boss Bernardo Provenzano, who said he was "agreed to continue as before". In April, an attack against Maurizio Costanzo was organized again during another meeting in Santa Flavia. In mid-May, Cancemi, Ganci and La Barbera met Provenzano, who reported that "everything was going on".

On the evening of May 14, two mobsters Lo Nigro and Benigno caused the explosion when Costanzo's car passed, who fortunately remained unharmed: in fact, Benigno pressed the remote control button a few moments late because Costanzo was in a different car; the explosion caused the wounding of twenty-four people, as well as serious damage to the surrounding buildings and to the cars parked nearby: a few hours later, an anonymous phone call claimed responsibility for the attack in via Fauro in the name of the "Falange Armata".

Also in mid-May, Lo Nigro, Giuliano and Gaspare Spatuzza proceeded to grind and package the explosives necessary for the subsequent attacks.

On the evening of May 26 Giuliano and Spatuzza stole a Fiat Fiorino and arranged the explosives inside it, the same evening Giuliano and Lo Nigro went to park the car bomb in via dei Georgofili, near the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and caused the explosion, which caused the collapse of the adjacent Torre dei Pulci and the killing of the spouses Fabrizio Nencioni and Angela Fiume with their daughters Nadia Nencioni (nine years), Caterina Nencioni (fifty days of life) and the university student Dario Capolicchio (twenty-two years), as well as the wounding of about forty people: the morning after the attack in via dei Georgofili, two anonymous phone calls reached the ANSA offices in Florence and Cagliari claiming the massacre in the name of the "Falange Armata".

At the end of May, Lo Nigro, Giuliano, Spatuzza and Salvatore Grigoli grinded and packaged more explosives and also cut iron rods that were to be used to amplify the destructive effect of the bomb.

In June, Spatuzza arrived in Rome to organize another attack and made a first inspection at the Olympic Stadium. In mid-July, Lo Nigro and Spatuzza carried out various inspections in the Trastevere area to identify a place to hit and chose the churches of San Giorgio al Velabro and San Giovanni in Laterano.
On July 26, Lo Nigro, Spatuzza and Giuliano went to Rome and on the evening of the following day they stole two more Fiat Uno, Lo Nigro and Benigno filled them with explosives; that same evening, Lo Nigro brought the first car bomb in front of San Giorgio al Velabro while Spatuzza, Benigno and Giuliano took the second one to San Giovanni in Laterano, lighting their respective fuses: the explosions, which took place at a distance of four minutes each from other, caused twenty-two injuries but no victims, as well as serious damage to the two churches.

in September the pentito Salvatore Contorno who lived in Rome was tracked down and it was decided to kill him; in the same period Spatuzza and Scarano made a second inspection at the Olympic Stadium, following two Carabinieri buses to learn about his movements and prepare another attack.

On January 23, 1994 Giacalone, Benigno, Spatuzza and Lo Nigro arranged the explosives inside the car then Scarano accompanied Lo Nigro and Benigno, who took the car bomb to Viale dei Gladiatori, in front of a garrison of the Carabinieri in the near the Olympic Stadium, where the Lazio-Udinese football match was being played, Spatuzza and Benigno stationed themselves on a hill overlooking the Stadium waiting for the end of the match to cause the explosion when the Carabinieri buses passed by but the remote control did not it worked and so the car bomb didn't go off.
In the following days the car was made to disappear and the explosives hidden.

On January 27 in Milan Giuseppe Graviano was arrested together with his brother Filippo. In March, Leoluca Bagarella asked Giovanni Brusca to get him some explosive different from that used in the previous attacks, to prevent the investigators from making connections; the explosive was directly packaged by Grigoli, Lo Nigro, Giuliano and Spatuzza in the warehouse in Corso dei Mille, since there was no need to grind it, and always entrusted to Carra, who transported it to the villa in Capena, where it was unloaded and hidden by Giacalone, Giuliano, Benigno and Grigoli, who made another stakeout in Formello and decided to attack Contorno by placing the remote-controlled explosive at the edge of the road he usually traveled.

However, during the first attempt, Benigno and Lo Nigro operated the remote control but the explosion did not happen because the gelatin used with the explosive was damaged and therefore Giuliano was sent to Palermo to procure more explosives and new detonators; Carra then made another trip to Capena with his truck to transport the new explosive, always procured by Brusca: Lo Nigro and Grigoli assembled the previously used explosive with the new one and placed it in a road section different from the previous one, hidden in a drainage channel.
On the morning of April 14, Lo Nigro and Benigno stationed themselves on a nearby hill to operate the remote control but Contorno did not pass; that same evening, Grigoli and Giacalone went to the scene to retrieve the explosives but they realized that it had been discovered by the Carabinieri, warned by a phone call from a citizen suspicious of some strange movements in the area.

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