FBIS3-58477 "drweu010_j_94006"
FBIS-WEU-94-010 Document Type:Daily Report 14 Jan 1994
ITALY & VATICAN CITY

Fight Against Mafia Continues

94ES0216A Milan PANORAMA in Italian 7 Jan 94 pp 28-29 94ES0216A Milan PANORAMA Language: Italian Article Type:CSO [Interview with Anti-Mafia Commission President Luciano Violante by Liana Milella; place and date not given: "The Mafia May Strike Near Election Time."] [Text] Organized Crime: The president of the Anti-Mafia Commission speaks out. During 1993, there have been some great successes in the war against Cosa Nostra, but the next few months could hold some explosive surprises in store for us. One hundred sixty-one Mafia gangs under investigation, with a total of 2,813 members of Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, and the 'ndrangheta. The Sacred United Crown under observation; 580 informers; 236 major fugitives arrested, including Toto Riina, the head of Cosa Nostra, and his deputy, Nitto Santapaola; Rosetta Cutolo and Umberto Ammaturo from the Camorra; and Pasquale Condello and Antonino Imerti, 'ndrangheta bosses. The people who carried out the Capaci [Judge Falcone] massacre were arrested, and there is a good chance that arrests will also be made in connection with the Via D'Amelio [Judge Borsellino] attack. In 1993, the war against crime reached levels never before seen in Italy.The center of analysis and impetus was the Anti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission. Together with the commission's president, Luciano Violante, PANORAMA has established what has been done and what remains to be done. [Milella] Have we reached a Nuremburg for Cosa Nostra? [Violante] Nuremburg came after the military defeat and followed the political sanctioning of that defeat. Today, we are only at the landing of the Allies in Normandy. We are at the point where the state is beginning to invade the territories dominated by the Mafia. The military victory may be near, but that by itself is not enough. The financial and social fronts must still be addressed. In 1993, Cosa Nostra killed the parish priest of Brancaccio, Don Pino Puglisi. It was not a neighborhood murder, rather the first attack against a man who had chosen to work with the people against the Mafia. [Milella] At the political crimes trial, Riina chose not to speak in front of Tommaso Buscetta. Is it the beginning of the end for the Mafia? [Violante] All the organizations have suffered severe blows. But Cosa Nostra's trafficking continues, and the Camorra and the 'ndrangheta are still underestimated. The 'ndrangheta is a very, very dangerous organization because of its connections with subversive elements on the right and the corrupt Masonic lodges. The Camorra is dangerous because of its control over the territory. In Sicily, there are some free zones, but not in Campania. You have not won if you defeat only Cosa Nostra. We risk winning in Sicily and losing in the rest of Italy. [Milella] What effect have the arrests of the big bosses and all the informers had? [Violante] We have won many battles, but not the war. In the end we will win that, too, but we will have to pay a different price. Many more on our side will be killed. We have to isolate the Mafia. The public has often lived with this phenomenon: the doctors who fake certificates as favors; shop owners who launder dirty money; the lawyers who act as counselors. All this must stop. And, to a certain degree, it already is stopping. [Milella] There are allegedly more shocking strikes being prepared. What does the Mafia hope to obtain? Can it be stopped? [Violante] Until now, we have had two types of attacks. One kind is extermination, the elimination of a single enemy, like the judges Gaetano Costa and Rocco Chinnici. The other kind is one of dialogue: the bombs in the spring and summer protesting the harsh prison conditions resulting from the modifications made in July 1992 to Article 41bis of the prison regulations. We have not yet had strikes aimed at obstructing, which have the same function as the gunfire of a patrol in protecting behind the front lines in earning time. In the future, this is the kind we will have to deal with. [Milella] Then why are they targeting individuals like you, like prosecutor Giancarlo Caselli and the head of DIA, Gianni De Gennaro? [Violante] The fact that there are so many objectives proves my theory. The murders of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, just two months apart, already signaled the beginning of this strategy. It is project of extermination targeting all the strong points. [Milella] Will the state have the strength to stand up to it? [Violante] Many massacres have already been avoided. Many people are alive thanks to measures of prevention. Making an attack more difficult is already a step ahead, as is arresting the suspected perpetrators. [Milella] After the bombings of Rome, Florence, and Milan, there was talk of Mafia terrorism, of an alliance between the Mafia, Masons, extremists on the right, and government secret agents who have turned traitors. Is this still a valid theory? [Violante] The Mafia does not act alone. The criminal elements from Sicily, Campania, and Calabria have always had ties with the extremists on the right. It happened in the past with the massacre of train 904. Today, we have a former member of the New Order movement and of the Mafia, Pietro Rampulla, arrested for the Capaci ambush. Rosario Cattafi from Messina is involved in the traffic of arms. There is Domenico Papalia, a 'ndrangheta boss who, thanks to a unique appeal, was able to have his murder trial overturned. Papalia was the first name mentioned by Antonino Gioe, the Mafioso who killed himself in prison. [Milella] That alliance was not just a theoretical assumption? [Violante] There exists a system of subversive forces, each with its own history and its own goals, which sometimes happen to act together. Just think of the corrupt Masonic lodges that were key elements in the relationships. Members of the Calabrian, Sicilian, Mafias, etc., belong to the same lodge. What we are seeing is the Mafia making use of the Masonic system. [Milella] In 1993, political men who were thought to be untouchable, like Giulio Andreotti and Antonio Gava, found themselves under investigation. What is changing in the relationship between the Mafia and politics? Who are the Mafia's new contacts? [Violante] I do not know if Senator Andreotti and Senator Gava are criminally responsible. Very likely, the top levels of the Mafia leadership are now waiting to see what will happen. If a separatist political proposition--under whatever name or guise--were to go ahead, it would be an incredible opportunity for them. The Mafia, which makes investments in its relationships with politics, is now waiting to see. It could be that it is waiting to ally itself with the future winner. Everyone must keep their eyes open. [Milella] Is the Mafias also trying to sabatoge the investigations by influencing the informers? [Violante] There could be a strategy of infiltration aimed for the most part, not at getting false testimony or stopping the trials, but at finding out where the former Mafiosi are being held, how they are being guarded, and what kind of control there is of their family members, so they can kill them. It is a question of predominance: They have to show that they are stronger than we are. As for the informers, it is about time a code of professional ethics were passed for the magistrates, which would establish the regulations of the relationships with the state's witnesses and would determine the scheduling and format of the confessions. [Milella] Elections are approaching. Should we be expecting demonstrations like the bombings in May and July? [Violante] Nothing can be excluded by anyone. The 5 April 1992 elections were preceded by the assassination of Salvo Lima and followed by the massacres of Capaci and Via D'Amelio. It is likely that the strikes of obstruction will take place before Parliament is dissolved and after the elections, like in 1992. We have the means to prevent the attacks, but some cannot be avoided.
[Box, p 29]
Embargo
"We are still lagging behind in the hunt for Mafia money. A meaningful comparison would be to say that today on the financial front in the fight against crime we find ourselves in the same situation in which we were at the end of the 1970's with regard to the criminal front." In 1994, Luciano Violante's principle objective and the one on which he will be concentrating all his energies, is the battle to stop the dirty money of the Cosa Nostra and the other criminal organizations. The president of the Anti-Mafia Commission explains: "Back then, we followed the individual crimes committed by the Mafia, and we did not attack the organization as such. The big difference with judges like Rocco Chinnici, Gaetano Costa, Giovanni Falcone, and Paolo Borsellino was precisely that they went from concentrating on the individual responsibilities for the murders to attacking the Mafia organization in and of itself as a crime in order to then discover the ones who were really guilty of the assassinations. On the financial front, this change has not yet taken place. Today, we are following the individual cases of money laundering--with positive results statistically--but we are not yet in a position to attack the complex organization of money laundering. The result is that single channels of money laundering are discovered while all the rest continues." What is Violante's proposal? "There should be at least one magistrate in each district attorney general's office to handle Mafia finances. We also need to review the laws controlling criminal assets, because the present ones are totally inadequate. Only 7 percent of the assets seized are confiscated and 11 percent are given back. All the rest remains blocked. Then we need to periodically hold joint meetings of the special police forces (DIA [Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate], ROS [Special Operations Section], SCO [Central Operations Service], and GICO [Organized Crime Investigative Group]) and the ordinary police, who handle financial matters--but without getting into our heads the idea that we need another specialized organization. Finally, international collaboration is indispensable, because a problem like money laundering cannot be confronted on the level of a single country. In the future, some forms of embargo will have to be considered for countries and banks that welcome Mafia funds."