Leonardo Messina
Encyclopedia
Leonardo "Narduzzo" Messina (b. San Cataldo, September 22, 1955) is a former Sicilian mafioso
who became a government informant or "pentito
" in 1992. His testimony led to the arrest of over 200 mafiosi during the so-called "Operation Leopard" . Messina has implicated several politicians and government officials with ties to Sicilian Mafia
, in particular Giulio Andreotti
, seven times Prime Minister for Italy.
He left elementary school and became involved in burglary. He was imprisoned several times. In April 1982 after serving four years for armed robbery he eventually became a "man of honour" in the local Mafia family of San Cataldo. Messina became a close friend of Giuseppe Madonia, the boss of Vallelunga
– one of the most important Mafia families in the province of Caltanissetta and an ally of the Corleonesi
.
In 1984 he was arrested again for the killing of a drug dealer. He stayed in prison until 1989. After his release, he organized a drug trafficking ring for Giuseppe Madonia that covered several region in Italy. Madonia, in the meantime, had become the representative of the province of Caltanissetta in the Interprovincional Commission
of Cosa Nostra.
). He was the first mafioso to start collaborating after the Capaci massacre in which judge Giovanni Falcone
, his wife and three men of his police escort were killed. He said he was moved by emotional appeal of Rosaria Schifani – the widow of one the police escorts of Falcone – against the Mafia.
Messina started to collaborate on June 30, 1992 and was a goldmine of information to Falcone’s colleague Paolo Borsellino
, especially about the workings of the Mafia in central and southern Sicily. He talked about a rival mafia-like organisation in Sicily, the Stidda
. It was composed originally of mafiosi who had left the organisation during the Second Mafia War
of the early 1980s. The new group was particularly strong in southern Sicily around the towns of Agrigento
, Caltanissetta
and Gela
. As a result of his declarations 203 arrest warrants were issued on November 17, 1992, in the so-called "Operation Leopard" (Operazione Leopardo). At that time the Mafia had killed Borsellino as well.
under the leadership of Totò Riina. Murder had become institutionalised instead of a measure that had to be used sparingly and rationally.
Messina described how the Corleonesi organized their rise to power: "They took power by slowly, slowly killing everyone … We were kind of infatuated with them because we thought that getting rid of the old bosses we would become the new bosses. Some people killed their brother, others their cousin and so on, because they thought they would take their places. Instead, slowly, (the Corleonesi) gained control of the whole system. (…) First they used us to get rid of the old bosses, then they got rid of all those who raised their heads, like Giuseppe Greco
'the Shoe', Mario Prestifilippo
and Vincenzo Puccio
… all that’s left are men without character, who are their puppets."
Messina himself was heavily involved negotiating the contracts as the underboss of the Mafia family with an aging leader, acting as the intermediary between business leaders and politicians. Government contracts were an important source of revenue and virtually nothing got built without Mafia approval and the necessary kickbacks. "The rule is that any firm starting a job on the territory of a family must contact a man of honour of that family, in order to establish … the percentage to be paid to the Mafia family, considering the overall value of the work," according to Messina. Masonic lodges
played an important role to tie the necessary contacts. All the most senior Mafia bosses were affiliated to the Masonry, according to Messina, which represented a “meeting point for everyone”.
as the ultimate point of reference of a chain of political exchanges that should have adjusted the sentence of the Maxi Trial
that had established Cosa Nostra a single hierarchical organisation ruled by a Commission
and that its leaders could be held responsible for criminal acts that were committed to benefit the organisation (the so-called Buscetta theorem). The Mafia counted on judge Corrado Carnevale
of the Supreme Court to modify the sentence. And Salvo Lima – Andreotti’s pro-consul on Sicily – "acted as the liaison with (…) Andreotti for the needs of the Sicilian Mafia," said Messina.
However, one of the architects of the Maxi Trial, judge Giovanni Falcone
, had moved to the ministry of Justice in Rome and managed to prevent that Carnevale would preside the section that would judge the Maxi Trial sentence. According to Messina, there was widespread resentment within Cosa Nostra toward the Andreotti faction of the Christian Democracy and the Craxi
group of the Italian Socialist Party
.
by the Italian Supreme Court in January 1992, which upheld the Buscetta theorem. Many Mafia bosses were condemned to life in prison and Cosa Nostra reacted furiously. In March 1992, they killed Lima and in May Mafia killers blew up Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three bodyguards. In July, a second car bomb killed Falcone's colleague and close friend Paolo Borsellino
, along with five bodyguards.
"As for the killings of Falcone and Borsellino, without a doubt the result of the Maxi Trial played a determining role, " Messina said. "A reaction was absolutely necessary to improve morale and to re-assert the power of Cosa Nostra. That reaction had to be against the magistrates who had handled the case and against the politicians who had failed to guarantee the positive outcome of the trial and had allowed Carnevale to be removed from the case."
, Messina’s early testimony about the links between Cosa Nostra and politics was of crucial importance at the time. The knowledge about the inner workings of the top echelon of Cosa Nostra, he obtained from Giuseppe Madonia – considered to be the number two of the Mafia around 1990. He was a key witness for the prosecution against the Mafia in the province of Caltanissetta. On December 4, 1992 he appeared before the Italian Parliamentary Antimafia Commission
led by senator Luciano Violante
.
However, some of his declarations were far fetched. He claimed that there was Mafia Commission on a global scale, which has been discarded by most serious academics and law enforcement specialists. He also claimed Umberto Bossi
and the League of the North, a political organization advocating the separation of Northern and Southern Italy, was a "creature" of the Sicilian mafia in order to set up a similar League of the South controlled by the Mafia.
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
who became a government informant or "pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
" in 1992. His testimony led to the arrest of over 200 mafiosi during the so-called "Operation Leopard" . Messina has implicated several politicians and government officials with ties to Sicilian Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, in particular Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
, seven times Prime Minister for Italy.
Early career
Born in San Cataldo, Caltanissetta, Messina was from a family of mafiosi going back a few generations. "I represent the seventh generation belonging to Cosa Nostra," he said. "I was affiliated not because I was a robber or because I was able to kill, but because I was bound to become a member by family tradition."He left elementary school and became involved in burglary. He was imprisoned several times. In April 1982 after serving four years for armed robbery he eventually became a "man of honour" in the local Mafia family of San Cataldo. Messina became a close friend of Giuseppe Madonia, the boss of Vallelunga
Vallelunga
Vallelunga is a part of the metropolitan area of Rome, Italy.- See also :* Autodromo Vallelunga...
– one of the most important Mafia families in the province of Caltanissetta and an ally of the Corleonesi
Corleonesi
The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca...
.
In 1984 he was arrested again for the killing of a drug dealer. He stayed in prison until 1989. After his release, he organized a drug trafficking ring for Giuseppe Madonia that covered several region in Italy. Madonia, in the meantime, had become the representative of the province of Caltanissetta in the Interprovincional Commission
Sicilian Mafia Commission
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra...
of Cosa Nostra.
Arrest and pentimento
Messina was arrested in April 1992 and decided to become a government informant (pentitoPentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
). He was the first mafioso to start collaborating after the Capaci massacre in which judge Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
, his wife and three men of his police escort were killed. He said he was moved by emotional appeal of Rosaria Schifani – the widow of one the police escorts of Falcone – against the Mafia.
Messina started to collaborate on June 30, 1992 and was a goldmine of information to Falcone’s colleague Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
, especially about the workings of the Mafia in central and southern Sicily. He talked about a rival mafia-like organisation in Sicily, the Stidda
Stidda
La Stidda is a name for Mafia-type criminal organizations centered in Gela, Sicily, in Italy. Members are known as stiddari or stiddaroli. It is most active in the rural parts of southern Sicily and is partially a rival to Cosa Nostra...
. It was composed originally of mafiosi who had left the organisation during the Second Mafia War
Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a conflict within the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place in the early 1980s. As with any criminal organization, the history of the Sicilian Mafia is replete with conflicts and power struggles, and the violence that results from them, but these are generally localised and...
of the early 1980s. The new group was particularly strong in southern Sicily around the towns of Agrigento
Agrigento
Agrigento , is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy, and capital of the province of Agrigento. It is renowned as the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas , one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia during the golden...
, Caltanissetta
Caltanissetta
Caltanissetta is a city and comune located on the western interior of Sicily, capital of the province of Caltanissetta...
and Gela
Gela
Gela is a town and comune in the province of Caltanissetta in the south of Sicily, Italy. The city is at about 84 kilometers distance from the city of Caltanissetta, on the Mediterranean Sea. The city has a larger population than the provincial capital, and ranks second in land area.Gela is an...
. As a result of his declarations 203 arrest warrants were issued on November 17, 1992, in the so-called "Operation Leopard" (Operazione Leopardo). At that time the Mafia had killed Borsellino as well.
The Corleonesi reign of terror
Messina also revealed that Cosa Nostra was in the midst of a profound internal crisis around 1990. Life within the organisation had become an intolerable nightmare under the reign of terror instituted by the CorleonesiCorleonesi
The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca...
under the leadership of Totò Riina. Murder had become institutionalised instead of a measure that had to be used sparingly and rationally.
Messina described how the Corleonesi organized their rise to power: "They took power by slowly, slowly killing everyone … We were kind of infatuated with them because we thought that getting rid of the old bosses we would become the new bosses. Some people killed their brother, others their cousin and so on, because they thought they would take their places. Instead, slowly, (the Corleonesi) gained control of the whole system. (…) First they used us to get rid of the old bosses, then they got rid of all those who raised their heads, like Giuseppe Greco
Giuseppe Greco
Giuseppe "Pino" Greco was a hitman and high-ranking member of the Sicilian Mafia. A number of sources refer to him exclusively as Pino Greco although Giuseppe was his Christian name; "Pino" is a frequent abbreviation of the name Giuseppe.One of the most prolific killers in criminal history, he...
'the Shoe', Mario Prestifilippo
Mario Prestifilippo
Mario Prestifilippo was a member of the Sicilian Mafia.He was briefly the boss of the Ciaculli Mafia Family after Giuseppe Greco was murdered in 1985. He played a significant role in the Second Mafia War of the early 1980s orchestrated by Salvatore Riina...
and Vincenzo Puccio
Vincenzo Puccio
Vincenzo Puccio was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was from Palermo and joined the Ciaculli Mafia family sometime in the late 1970s, although like many other members of that particular family he operated a great deal under the orders of the Corleonesi.- Criminal career :He was arrested...
… all that’s left are men without character, who are their puppets."
Public-sector contracts
An important part of Messina’s testimony was information on how the Mafia maintained its grip on construction and public-sector contracts in Sicily, which some experts suggest is the Sicilian Mafia’s greatest source of income. He revealed the identity of Totò Riina's "minister of public works" Angelo Siino – a businessman who oversaw the Mafia’s public-sector contracts, collected the bribes, met the entrepreneurs and politicians, made the threats and, if necessary, ordered the killings.Messina himself was heavily involved negotiating the contracts as the underboss of the Mafia family with an aging leader, acting as the intermediary between business leaders and politicians. Government contracts were an important source of revenue and virtually nothing got built without Mafia approval and the necessary kickbacks. "The rule is that any firm starting a job on the territory of a family must contact a man of honour of that family, in order to establish … the percentage to be paid to the Mafia family, considering the overall value of the work," according to Messina. Masonic lodges
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
played an important role to tie the necessary contacts. All the most senior Mafia bosses were affiliated to the Masonry, according to Messina, which represented a “meeting point for everyone”.
Mafia and politics
Perhaps Messina's most devastating revelations were about the relations between Cosa Nostra and Italian politics. He was the first pentito to name Giulio AndreottiGiulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
as the ultimate point of reference of a chain of political exchanges that should have adjusted the sentence of the Maxi Trial
Maxi Trial
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
that had established Cosa Nostra a single hierarchical organisation ruled by a Commission
Sicilian Mafia Commission
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra...
and that its leaders could be held responsible for criminal acts that were committed to benefit the organisation (the so-called Buscetta theorem). The Mafia counted on judge Corrado Carnevale
Corrado Carnevale
Corrado Carnevale is an Italian judge, currently member of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. He became famous because of the large number of Mafia cases overturned in the Appeal Court where he was president, because of his involvement in some of the worst corruption scandals in the history...
of the Supreme Court to modify the sentence. And Salvo Lima – Andreotti’s pro-consul on Sicily – "acted as the liaison with (…) Andreotti for the needs of the Sicilian Mafia," said Messina.
However, one of the architects of the Maxi Trial, judge Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
, had moved to the ministry of Justice in Rome and managed to prevent that Carnevale would preside the section that would judge the Maxi Trial sentence. According to Messina, there was widespread resentment within Cosa Nostra toward the Andreotti faction of the Christian Democracy and the Craxi
Bettino Craxi
Benedetto Craxi was an Italian politician, head of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993, the first socialist President of the Council of Ministers of Italy from 1983 to 1987.-Political career:...
group of the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
.
The Mafia betrayed
The Mafia felt betrayed by Salvo Lima and Andreotti. In their opinion they had failed to block the confirmation of the sentence of the Maxi TrialMaxi Trial
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
by the Italian Supreme Court in January 1992, which upheld the Buscetta theorem. Many Mafia bosses were condemned to life in prison and Cosa Nostra reacted furiously. In March 1992, they killed Lima and in May Mafia killers blew up Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three bodyguards. In July, a second car bomb killed Falcone's colleague and close friend Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
, along with five bodyguards.
"As for the killings of Falcone and Borsellino, without a doubt the result of the Maxi Trial played a determining role, " Messina said. "A reaction was absolutely necessary to improve morale and to re-assert the power of Cosa Nostra. That reaction had to be against the magistrates who had handled the case and against the politicians who had failed to guarantee the positive outcome of the trial and had allowed Carnevale to be removed from the case."
Legacy
Although a mafioso of minor importance from the province of CaltanissettaProvince of Caltanissetta
The Province of Caltanissetta is a province in the southern part of Sicily, Italy...
, Messina’s early testimony about the links between Cosa Nostra and politics was of crucial importance at the time. The knowledge about the inner workings of the top echelon of Cosa Nostra, he obtained from Giuseppe Madonia – considered to be the number two of the Mafia around 1990. He was a key witness for the prosecution against the Mafia in the province of Caltanissetta. On December 4, 1992 he appeared before the Italian Parliamentary Antimafia Commission
Antimafia Commission
The Italian Antimafia Commission is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate . The Antimafia Commission is a commission of inquiry into, initially, the “phenomenon of the Mafia”...
led by senator Luciano Violante
Luciano Violante
Luciano Violante is an Italian judge and politician, Member of Parliament since 1979. He is particularly interested in questions of justice, the struggle against the Mafia and institutional reform.-Biography:...
.
However, some of his declarations were far fetched. He claimed that there was Mafia Commission on a global scale, which has been discarded by most serious academics and law enforcement specialists. He also claimed Umberto Bossi
Umberto Bossi
Umberto Bossi is an Italian politician, leader of the Northern League, a party seeking autonomy or independence for Northern Italy. He is married to Manuela Marrone and has four sons ....
and the League of the North, a political organization advocating the separation of Northern and Southern Italy, was a "creature" of the Sicilian mafia in order to set up a similar League of the South controlled by the Mafia.