The Antimafia Pool was a group of investigating magistrates at the Prosecuting Office of

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

, who closely worked together sharing information and developing new investigative and prosecutorial strategies against the

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra (, ; "our thing"), also referred to as simply Mafia, is a secret society, criminal society and criminal organization originating on the island of Sicily and dates back to the mid-19th century. Emerging as a form of ...

. An informal pool was created by Judge Rocco Chinnici in the early 1980s following the example of anti-terrorism judges in Northern Italy in the 1970s.Jamieson, ''The Antimafia'', p. 29 Most importantly, they assumed collective responsibility for carrying Mafia prosecutions forward: all the members of the pool signed prosecutorial orders to avoid exposing any one of them to particular risk, such as the one that had cost Judge Gaetano Costa his life. Costa had signed the indictments of 55 against the Mafia heroin-trafficking network of the Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino clan, after virtually all of the other prosecutors in his office had declined to do so – a fact that leaked out of the office and eventually cost him his life. He was murdered on 6 August 1980, on the orders of Salvatore Inzerillo.Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino and the Procura of Palermo
, Peter Schneider & Jane Schneider, May 2002, essay is based on excerpts from Chapter Six of Jane Schneider and Peter Schneider,
Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo
', Berkeley: University of California Press In July 1983, magistrate Rocco Chinnici was killed by the Mafia. His place as head of the ‘Office of Instruction’ (Ufficio istruzione), the investigative branch of the Prosecution Office of Palermo, was taken by

Antonino Caponnetto Antonino Caponnetto (5 September 1920 – 6 December 2002) was an Italian Antimafia magistrate. Biography Caponnetto was born in Caltanissetta in 1920. His career began in 1954 in Florence, but he became famous only in 1983, after Rocco ...

, who formalized the pool. Next to

Giovanni Falcone Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian ...

, the group included

Paolo Borsellino Paolo Emanuele Borsellino (; 19 January 1940 – 19 July 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of ...

, Giuseppe Di Lello and Leonardo Guarnotta.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', pp. 85-90 The group pooled together several investigations into the Mafia, which resulted in the

Maxi Trial The Maxi Trial () was a criminal trial against the Sicilian Mafia that took place in Palermo, Sicily. The trial lasted from 10 February 1986 (the first day of the Corte d'Assise) to 30 January 1992 (the final day of the Supreme Court of Cassati ...

against the Mafia, from February 1986 to December 1987. The trial was held in a bunker-courthouse specially constructed for this purpose, inside the walls of the Ucciardone prison in Palermo. A total of 475 mafiosi were indicted for a multitude of crimes relating to

Mafia "Mafia", as an informal or general term, is often used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the Sicilian Mafia, original Mafia in Sicily, to the Italian-American Mafia, or to other Organized crime in Italy, organiz ...

activities, based primarily on testimonies given as evidence from former Mafia bosses turned informants, known as '' pentiti'', in particular

Tommaso Buscetta Tommaso Buscetta (; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was a high-ranking Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization. Buscetta p ...

and

Salvatore Contorno Salvatore Contorno (; born 28 May 1946), called Totuccio, is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who turned into a state witness (''pentito'') against Cosa Nostra in October 1984, following the example of Tommaso Buscetta. He gave detailed ac ...

. Most were convicted. To the surprise of many, the convictions were upheld in January 1992, after the final stage of appeal. The importance of the trial was that the existence of the Cosa Nostra was finally judicially confirmed.

References

Bibliography

*Jamieson, Alison (2000). ''The Antimafia: Italy’s fight against organized crime'', London: Macmillan, . *Schneider, Jane T. & Peter T. Schneider (2003).
Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo
', Berkeley: University of California Press * Stille, Alexander (1995). '' Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic'', New York: Vintage

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading