Paolo Borsellino

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Paolo Borsellino (January 19, 1940 - July 19, 1992) was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his friend and fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been killed by the Mafia.

The frightened ones die every day, those who are not afraid die only once.

—Paolo Borsellino

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[edit] Biography

Born in a middle-class Palermo neighbourhood, la Kalsa, Borsellino obtained a degree in law at the University of Palermo, with honors, in 1962. Then, after his father's death, he passed the judging exam in 1963. During those years, he worked in many cities in Sicily (Enna in 1965, Mazara del Vallo in 1967, Monreale in 1969). After he married in 1968, he transferred to his native Palermo in 1975 together with Rocco Chinnici, where he then started his unfinished work to fight and defeat the growing Sicilian Mafia.

His accomplishments included the arrest of six organization members in 1980; in the same year, one of his workmates, the Carabinieri captain Emanuele Basile, was murdered by the Mafia. Because of that event, he was assigned police protection.

During those years, working together with Magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Rocco Chinnici, Borsellino continued his research about the Mafia and its links to political and economical powers in Sicily and Italy. In 1983, Rocco Chinnici was killed by a bomb in his car. His place in the Antimafia Pool was taken by Antonino Caponnetto. In 1986, Borsellino became head of the Procure of Marsala, continuing there his personal campaign against the Mafia bosses, in the most populated city of the province of Trapani. His links with Giovanni Falcone, who remained in Palermo, allowed him to cover the entire Western Sicily for investigations. In 1987, after Caponnetto resigned due to illness, Borsellino was protagonist of a great protest about the unsuccessful nomination of his friend Giovanni Falcone as head of the Antimafia Pool.

Falcone-Borsellino plaque at Palermo International Airport.
Falcone-Borsellino plaque at Palermo International Airport.

In 1992, after five years of battling the Mafia, Borsellino was killed by a car bomb in Via D'Amelio, Palermo, less than two months after the death of his good friend Falcone. The bomb attack also claimed the lives of five policemen: Agostino Catalano, Walter Cosina, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, Claudio Traina. In recognition of their efforts in the anti-Mafia trials, he and Giovanni Falcone were named as heroes of the last 60 years in the November 13, 2006 issue of Time Magazine.

In his last video interview, given on May 21, 1992 to Jean Pierre Moscardo and Fabrizio Calvi, he spoke about the possible link between Cosa Nostra's mafiosi and rich Italian businessmen such as future Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi[1]. The interview received surprisingly scarce visibility in the Italian television up to present; as of 2007, it was aired only one time by satellite channel RaiNews 24 in 2000, in a shorter version of 30 minutes long (it is 50 minutes long in its original form).

Salvatore Riina, the head of the Corleonesi Mafia Family, is now serving a life sentence in prison for sanctioning the murders of Borsellino and Falcone, as well as for many other crimes.

Paolo Borsellino today is considered as one of the most important magistrates killed by the Sicilian Mafia during the 1980s and 1990s, and he is remembered as one of the main symbols of the battle of the State against the Mafia.

Many schools and public building were named after him, including the Palermo International Airport (now known as Falcone-Borsellino Airport). A memorial by local sculptor Tommaso Geraci is there.

His sister Rita ran as centre-left presidential candidate in the 2006 regional election, after having won the regional primary election, but lost to incumbent Salvatore Cuffaro.

[edit] References

  1. ^ (Italian) [1]

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