NCJ Number
193380
Date Published
2001
Length
222 pages
Annotation
This autobiography tells the story of the Thirty Years War in Sicily and the author’s role in the Antimafia.
Abstract
A vicious Mafia sect embarked on a reign of terror in the town of Corleone in the 1960's. The sect profited from the international heroin trade and was responsible for the murders of rivals as well as police and government officials. The author, Leoluca Orlando, was aware of the code of silence of the Mafia but became an activist for lawfulness. The Mafia mentality had infiltrated the church, culture and politics, and was present in the myth that Mafiosi were “men of honor.” Orlando became a councilman and then the mayor of the city of Palermo. He led the resistance against the Cosa Nostra along with Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and as a result was marked for death. Unlike Falcone and Borsellino, he survived by fleeing to Soviet Georgia briefly, and returned home to live under the protection of armed guards. Highlighted in the book is Tommaso Buscetta, who became the first of the penitents by revealing the inner workings of the Mafia to United States and Italian authorities. He also gave vital testimony during the mass prosecution known as the “Maxitrial.” A national hero of Italy, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, was murdered on the streets of Palermo with his wife when he took on the Mafia. The head of the Corleonesi, “Toto” Riina, was known for his appetite for violence, and broke the rules of the Mafia when he tried to stage a coup against the Italian government in the early 1990's. A former prime minister of Italy, Giulio Andreotti, was prosecuted on charges that he had led the Christian Democratic Party into an alliance with the Cosa Nostra. The effort to expel the Mafia from Italy’s national politics is detailed, along with the movement Orlando helped build to recapture the culture and democracy of Sicily. Index