Word: borsellino
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...became known as the Maxi-Trials in the mid-1980s, Sicilian prosecutors tried hundreds of Mafia suspects en masse for crimes ranging from murder to criminal association. The sweeping strategy hit Cosa Nostra in the trenches, marking a critical victory for such crusading magistrates as Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. It was also great theater. Crammed together into a custom-made, bunker-like courtroom, the accused seemed straight from a Hollywood casting call for Mob thugs: often unshaven, sweaty and in short-sleeved leisure shirts, the Mafia men pointed fingers and hollered threats from inside steel cages that ringed...
Stille's dense narrative focuses on two implacably determined prosecutors, who with the help of informers managed to breach the wall of secrecy and the infamous culture of omerte (silence) that surrounded the Mafia. Childhood friends from Palermo, aloof, workaholic Giovanni Falcone and the gregarious Paolo Borsellino were, in the author's phrase, Sicilian patriots. Together they painstakingly amassed the evidence that led to the first so-called maxi-trial, of 475 Mafia conspirators, which began in Palermo on Feb. 16, 1986, and ended 22 months later with the conviction of 344 defendants. Both prosecutors eventually paid for their integrity...
...years, honest officials in Sicily who tried to block or expose Mafia corruption tended to become what Sicilians call "excellent cadavers." Two who met this fate are the heroes of Alexander Stille's new book about the Mafia's longtime stranglehold on Sicily. Prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino managed to break the infamous code of silence that surrounded the Mafia. Their evidence led to the 1987 conviction of 344 Mafia members, but in 1992 both prosecutors were assassinated.TIME critic John Elsonsays the while "Excellent Cadavers" is a bit uneven, it is nonetheless "a strong tale of a drama...
...ordered the assassinations last year of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two widely admired magistrates who had made Mafia busting their life's work. Public outrage over the murders, and the seeming untouchability of those who committed them, stiffened the Italian government's resolve to confront organized crime. The national assembly swiftly passed sweeping antiracketeering laws that permit wider use of phone taps, property searches, confiscation of the property of suspected Mafiosi and guarantees of protection for state's witnesses...
Most of the country's means to confront organized mobsters remain ineffectual. Strikes, speeches and taking phones away from prisoners mock the dedication of Falcone, Borsellino and their colleagues. A sweeping crime law modeled on the RICO acts would be a useful start. But until the state applies the same determination and courage that enabled it to stamp out the political terrorism of the 1970s, the battle against the Mafia will be one-sided, and the odds against the good guys will grow longer...