“Giovanni wanted it like this. And if he were alive he would agree ”. It takes a bit of “cynicism”, Giuseppe Ayala admits it. What it takes to swallow a bitter morsel, the release of Giovanni Brusca , mafia, criminal, murderer, instigator and perpetrator of dozens, hundreds of murders for the Cosa Nostra, among others Rocco Chinnici , Giovanni Falcone , Francesca Morvillo and the escort, of Paolo Borsellino . Twenty-five years seem a few, nothing, for those who have not yet healed those wounds. Imagine for those who, like Ayala, indicted Brusca in the maxi-trial, when he was the chief prosecutor of Palermo and coordinated the anti-mafia pool.Twenty-five years for Brusca. Twenty-one years for Girolamo Archina, Ilva’s head of institutional relations, says the Taranto Court of Assizes. How can such a paradox
be explained? It can be explained by an extremely rational calculation. Brusca’s release from prison has a counterpart. Without his confessions, we would never have put dozens of dangerous criminals and mobsters in jail. In Taranto there is a first degree sentence, and it has only one counterpart: the environmental disaster and the pollution that has killed men, women and children over the years. They cannot be compared. And a person who lives the facts of these hours with a lump in his throat speaks. How he reacted to the news
Emotionally. Many over the years have called it “beast”, I believe that animals do not deserve such an insult. But I am also aware that this release is permitted by a law that Falcone strongly wanted in his time. Why
Because the opening to collaborators of justice has given us unthinkable results. It is a question of costs and revenues. It is a cost for the state to reduce the penalties for criminals of this magnitude. It is enormously profitable to arrest hundreds of murderers thanks to their confessions. Certainly and difficult to explain it to those who have lost a relative, a friend, a colleague.
I am among them. And if they had killed my father, I would have reacted just like my friend Rita Dalla Chiesa. Not to mention the little Di Matteo dissolved in acid, or the Capaci massacre, which still takes me away from sleep. Falcone
would approve. I think so. Because this release is the result of a law for which he fought. Moreover, it does not exist only in Italy. At the time we looked at the American experience, where there are continuous relationships of collaboration between justice and criminals. To the point of reaching the excess, sometimes, of suspending processes. Brusca has never regretted it.
This applies to almost all collaborators of justice. Repentants can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It is an opportunistic and advantageous choice. For this reason the magistrates must always make the appropriate checks on the declarations made. With Brusca, I repeat, I have a personal background. That
is, the maxi-trial was accused only of mafia-type criminal association. I from Pm asked for the sentence, the court acquitted him. I challenged the sentence and in the Supreme Court he was convicted. Then he decided to collaborate. He said who operated that remote control in the Capaci massacre. We have arrested many, the state has come out the winner. Yet all political forces condemn Brusca’s release. Although, at the time, the law that allowed it was passed with the unanimous consent of Parliament.
Except in rare cases, we are at the usual sorties. Public opinion is shaken by the news, and some politicians speak of the shame of the state to ride the consensus. A script already seen. But justice cannot listen to the belly.
