Gaspare Pisciotta
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Gaspare Pisciotta (March 5, 1924 – February 9, 1954) was a companion and close friend of the Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano, and considered to be the co-leader of his outlaw band.
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[edit] Origins
Gaspare Pisciotta, nicknamed Aspanu by friends, was born in Montelepre in Western Sicily in 1924. Contrary to a widely-held belief, he and Giuliano were not cousins, but knew each other as children and became friends as young men. While Giuliano remained in Montelepre during the war, Pisciotta joined the army and was captured fighting against the Germans. He was released in 1945 and returned to Sicily, joining Giuliano’s separatist campaign and thus being one of the founding members of his band.
[edit] Trial
Shortly after Giuliano's death on July 5, 1950, Pisciotta was captured and brought to trial for his crimes as a bandit. During the trial he made the startling revelation that it had been he who assassinated Giuliano in his sleep, a statement which contradicted the police account that Giuliano had been shot by carabinieri captain Antonio Perenze in a gunfight in Castelvetrano. He claimed to have killed Giuliano on the instruction of Mario Scelba, then Minister of the Interior, and to have had an arrangement with Colonel Luca, the head of the anti-bandit force in Sicily, to collaborate on the condition that he should not be charged and that Luca would intervene in his favour if he were caught. However, during his trial Pisciotta was reticent in revealing the names of those responsible for the Portella della Ginestra massacre, and could not account for Giuliano’s documents in which he named the high-ranking government officials and mafiosi involved with Giuliano’s band. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour, which he served in the Ucciardone prison in Palermo.
Giuliano's mother reportedly had suspected Pisciotta as a potential traitor before her son's death, although Giuliano had tried to convince her of his trust in his lieutenant in a letter: "...we respect each other as brothers' what he is I am, and what I am he is." If Gaspare Pisciotta’s testimony was true, Giuliano suspected nothing until the time of his death.
[edit] Imprisonment and Death
In prison, Pisciotta made it clear that he believed his life was in danger. He was reported to have said “One of these days, they will kill me,”, and he refused to share a cell with anyone but his father, also serving a life sentence for involvement in Giuliano’s band. Gaspare even reportedly kept a tame sparrow to test his food for poison, and ate nothing but what his mother brought for him from home. However, on the morning of February 9, 1954, Gaspare took a vitamin preparation which he stirred into his coffee and drank. He almost immediately became violently ill, and despite being rushed to the prison infirmary, he was dead within forty minutes. The cause of death, as revealed by the autopsy, was the ingestion of 20mg of strychnine.
Both the government and the mafia were suggested as being behind the murder of Pisciotta, but no-one was ever brought to trial. Gaspare’s mother Rosalia wrote a letter to the press on March 18 of that year, denouncing the governmental corruption and possible mafia involvement in her son’s death, stating: “Yes, it is true that my son Gaspare will never open his mouth again, and already many people think they are safe; but who knows – perhaps other things may speak.” Gaspare Pisciotta had supposedly written an autobiography in prison, to which his mother may have been referring, and which his brother Pietro tried to sell. However, this document went missing and its contents remain unknown.
[edit] References
- Billy James Chandler. King of the Mountain: The Life and Death of Giuliano the Bandit (1988).
- Gavin Maxwell. God Protect Me From My Friends (1956)
- Time Magazine. The Big Mouth article (Feb. 22, 1954)
