Did judge Paolo Borsellino know about the negotiations initiated after the Capaci slaughter on the 23 May 1992 between the State and the Mafia in order to stop its slaughter strategy? Seventeen years later the mystery is still unsolved. The “papello”, i.e. a list written by the mafia boss Totò Riina, a fugitive at the time, with the requests of the Mafia to the State, which Massimo Ciancimino, son of Palermo’s former mayor Vito, has been talking about for a while, really exists.

Yesterday Massimo Ciancimino’s lawyer, Francesca Russo, handed over to the magistrate Roberto Scarpinato a copy of the document. Now the magistrates will have to examine carefully the document. As the magazine L’Espresso writes, Riina asked 12 things of the State, together with the other boss Bernardo Provenzano, both in prison now. The first point of the “papello” was the revision of the maxi-trial against the Mafia. The other points go from the elimination of the 41 bis law, that includes hard-line detention for Mafiosi, to house arrest for Mafiosi over 70 years old. The list ends with the abolition of taxes on petrol for Sicilians. But next to the 12 requests, there was a surprise, another “papello”, writes the magazine “L’Espresso, with new requests and changes to the previous 12, wanted by the Corleonesi and that Vito Ciancimino wrote and handed over to colonel Mario Mori”.

Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute