The investigations of Palermo’s prosecutors on the supposed negotiation between the State and the Mafia and the reliability of the document with the requests made by the criminal organization, the so-called “papello”, handed over in photocopy to the magistrates by Massimo Ciancimino, son of Palermo’s former Mafioso mayor, opened discussions.

There are still many questions with no answers: is the photocopy with the 12 requests what is called “papello”? And if not so, what does Massimo Ciancimino still have? Former lower chamber president Luciano Violante has no doubts: “The document published is a fake. I’m just saying the one published, maybe the other ones aren’t”.

According to Violante, it is a false document because “it refers to things like the 41 bis or the dissociation, a theme that will come out later”, so it is necessary to “understand the reason of the existence of that false document and its meaning”. But according to the national anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso, those negotiations really existed and they saved many minister’s lives. And also “via D’Amelio – suspects Grasso – happened to ‘heat up’ he talks. At the beginning the Mafia wanted to attack political power, by killing for example Calogero Mannino, Claudio Martelli, Giulio Andreotti, Carlo Vizzini and others of whom I don’t remember the name. Their aim changed probably because they understood that they couldn’t kill those who had to answer their requests”.

In the meantime during an interview in the programme “La Storia Siamo Noi”, Agnese Borsellino, widow of the magistrate killed in via D’Amelio, revealed that her husband during his last days, thought he was spied on from the Utveggio castle, from mount Pellegrino in Palermo. According to some Mafia experts, it could have been an observation point for intelligence services.

Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute