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Cesare Terranova (; 25 August 1921 – 25 September 1979) Biografia Cesare Terranova, Centro Studi Giuridici e Sociali "Cesare Terranova" (accessed 28 October 2012) can not be accessed 20 August 2017 was an Italian people judge and politician from Sicily, notable for his anti-Sicilian Mafia stance. From 1958 until 1971 Terranova was an examining magistrate at the Palermo prosecuting office. He was one of the first to seriously investigate the Mafia and the financial operations of Cosa Nostra. He was killed by Sicilian Mafia in 1979.
Cesare Terranova was the predecessor of judge Rocco Chinnici, who created the Antimafia Pool, a group of investigating magistrates who closely worked together, sharing information to diffuse responsibility and to prevent one person from becoming the sole institutional memory and solitary target, as Terranova had become.
Despite Terranova’s efforts, the verdict of the Trial of the 114 on 22 December 1968, by the Court in Catanzaro was a disappointment, and all but 10 of the 114 defendants, including many prominent mafiosi, were acquitted. Angelo La Barbera got 22 years and Tommaso Buscetta received 14 years for two so-called “white deaths” - the so-called lupara bianca which is used to refer to a mafia-style murder in which the victim's body is deliberately hidden.Sterling, Octopus, p. 150-51
Terranova was the first to acknowledge the existence of a Sicilian Mafia Commission. His knowledge was informed by confidential report of the Carabinieri of 28 May 1963, where a confidential informant revealed the existence of a commission composed of fifteen persons – six from Palermo city and the rest from towns in the province – "each with the rank of boss of either a group or a Mafia family." Judge Terranova did not believe that the existence of a commission meant that the Mafia was a tightly unified structure.Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia, p. 112
Terranova led investigations into the connections between the Mafia and politics. He looked into the exploits of the prominent Sicilian politician Salvatore Lima as mayor of Palermo, and concluded that Lima was in league with a number of Mafiosi, including Angelo La Barbera. In an indictment in 1964, Terranova wrote: "it is clear that Angelo and Salvatore La Barbera (well-known bosses in the Palermo area) ... knew former mayor Salvatore Lima and maintained relations in such a way as to ask for favours. ... The undeniable contacts of the La Barbera mafiosi with the one who was the first citizen of Palermo ... constitute a confirmation of ... the infiltration of the Mafia in several sectors of public life." Indictment "Angelo La Barbera +42", 23 June 1964 . However, nothing came of his enquiries or allegations.
However, the sentence of the Bari Court on 10 June 1969 resulted in acquittals for all the 64 defendants. The jury found Leggio guilty of stealing grain in 1948, for which he received a suspended sentence, but he was pronounced not guilty on all other accounts, including the murders of Placido Rizzotto and Navarra. The judges and prosecutors received anonymous letters threatening them with death.Servadio, Mafioso, pp. 167-72 Salvatore Riina – Leggio's eventual successor – was acquitted in 1969 and remained at large until his capture in 1993.
The Corleonesi were indicted in the Trial of the 114 related to the First Mafia War that resulted in the Ciaculli Massacre, that was also prepared by Terranova. During an interrogation preparing the trial, Leggio refused to answer questions. When in response to one of them, Leggio replied that he could not even recall his own name or his parents, Terranova instructed the clerk: "Write that Leggio does not know whose son he is." Leggio was infuriated with the implication that he was a bastard. The incident was the beginning of a deep hatred by Leggio for Terranova.
"Leggio actually had foam on his lips; he would have killed me on the spot if he could," Terranova told his wife. The prosecution appealed successfully against the Catanzaro verdict that had acquitted Leggio and had him tried in absentia in 1970. This time Leggio was found guilty, although he had left jail after the Catanzaro trial, given the time they had already spent in detention while awaiting trial, and it was not until 1974 that Leggio was captured again and taken into custody.
Terranova urged his colleagues of the majority to take their responsibility. According to the minority report:
The reports and the documentation of the Antimafia Commission were essentially disregarded. Terranova talked of “thirteen wasted years” of the Antimafia Commission, and did not seek re-election again.
However, on 25 September 1979, then aged fifty-eight, Terranova was shot to death in his car, along with his driver, policeman Lenin Mancuso, who acted as his bodyguard. The combination of his investigative skills and his recent political connections in Rome would have made Terranova an even more formidable Mafia opponent than before.Jamieson, The Antimafia, pp. 25-26Schneider & Schneider, Reversible Destiny, p. 135 Taking Terranova’s place was Rocco Chinnici, who was murdered by the Mafia in 1983. 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 PressStille, Excellent Cadavers, pp. 30-31
While in prison, Luciano Leggio had ordered the killing of Terranova as a revenge for the insult at the interrogation in the 1960s. The murder was approved by the Mafia Commission. Omicidio Terranova: La verità di Di Carlo, Centonove, 6 March 1998 Terranova had become the worst enemy of Leggio and the Corleonesi. He had a photograph of Leggio in his office that his colleagues had given him as a joke.Follain, The Last Godfathers, p. 120 Leggio was charged with ordering Terranova's murder, but was acquitted for lack of evidence, both in the first trial, which was held in Reggio Calabria in 1983, and in 1986, in the appeal process.
In 1974, when the Sicilian Mafia Commission was reorganized, Leggio through Totò Riina (Leggio was in jail) asked the Commission gathered at Michele Greco's estate Favarella for permission. The Commission decided, on instigation of Gaetano Badalamenti, that Terranova should be killed outside Sicily, in Rome. The killing was stalled because of plans to liberate Leggio. When that failed, Terranova's murder was on the agenda again and was confirmed in June 1979 during a Commission meeting at the Favarella estate.
On 15 January 2000, Salvatore Riina, Giovanni Brusca, Bernardo Provenzano, Francesco Madonia, Pippo Calò, Nenè Geraci and Michele Greco, all members of the Sicilian Mafia Commission at the time of the murder, were convicted to life sentences for ordering the murder of Terranova and Mancuso. Leggio had died. Omicidio Terranova. In assise inflitti 7 ergastoli, Corriere della Sera, 16 January 2000 Leoluca Bagarella, Giuseppe Madonia and Giuseppe Farinella were acquitted as the material killers. After 25 years, in October 2004, the Supreme Court confirmed the life sentences for Totò Riina, Michele Greco, Nenè Geraci and Francesco Madonia. Omicidio del giudice Cesare Terranova; La Cassazione conferma 4 ergastoli, Giornale di Sicilia, 8 October 2004
Terranova paved the way for a more successful prosecution of the Mafia in the 1980s. He was the predecessor of judge Rocco Chinnici, who succeeded Terranova as the chief examining magistrate at the Court in Palermo and who also became a victim of a Mafia attack in July 1983. Chinnici created the Antimafia Pool, a group of investigating magistrates who closely worked together to diffuse responsibility and to prevent one person from becoming a solitary target, like Terranova. Chinnici signed all indictments, along with the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were also killed by the Mafia in 1992, and other Sicilian judges, who presented a unified front to fight the Mafia. By joining efforts, they were a more difficult target for mafiosi, and preserved institutional memory by sharing information. Falcone and Borsellino prepared the Maxi Trial, that convicted 338 of the 475 Mafiosi members originally charged.
Cesare Terranova’s widow Giovanna became a prominent personality in the Antimafia movement after her husband was murdered.Jamieson, The Antimafia, p. 130Schneider & Schneider, Reversible Destiny, p. 216 She co-founded the first permanent civil Antimafia organisation, the Associazione donne siciliane per la lotta contro la Mafia (Association of Sicilian Women against the Mafia). Association Sicilian Women against Mafia , Women's Associations Facing Emergencies. Experiences from different parts of the world. Women's International Network Emergency and Solidarity, Rome, 18–19 June 2001 Giovanna Terranova said in an interview: "I would have felt guilty if I had stayed at home. I would have thought: Cesare died for nothing. Yes, because being killed is terrible, but being forgotten is even worse. It’s like dying twice." Mafia and anti-Mafia: the implications for everyday life, by Renate Siebert, in: Allum & Siebert, Organised Crime and the Challenge to Democracy, p. 46
In January 1982, on the initiative of judge Chinnici, a research center in the name of Cesare Terranova, the Centro Studi Giuridici e Sociali "Cesare Terranova", was set up in Palermo to honour his memory. Il centro studi, Centro Studi Giuridici e Sociali "Cesare Terranova" (accessed 28 October 2012)
Antimafia Commission
After the failure to fight the Mafia through the courts, Terranova changed strategy. In May 1972, he was elected as a representative in the Italian Parliament for the Independent Left, under the auspices of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).Jamieson, The Antimafia, pp. 22-23 He became the secretary of the Antimafia Commission that was established in 1963 after the Ciaculli massacre. He was re-elected in 1976. Terranova together with PCI deputy Pio La Torre wrote the 1976 minority report of the Antimafia Commission, which pointed to links between the Mafia and prominent politicians, in particular of the Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana).
Death
After seven years in Rome, at the end of the legislature in June 1979, Cesare Terranova asked to be re-instated in the judiciary. He was again appointed as the chief examining magistrate at the Court in Palermo to take the fight against the Mafia in the courts. L'uccisero i «corleonesi» di Liggio, La Sicilia, 25 September 2011 "Don't worry," he told his wife, "they don't dare touch judges, they won't touch me."Sterling, Octopus, p. 216
New trial
In 1997, the prosecution office in Reggio Calabria re-opened the murder investigation after the pentito Francesco Di Carlo and Gaspare Mutolo named the mafiosi Giuseppe Giacomo Gambino, Vincenzo Puccio, Giuseppe Madonia and Leoluca Bagarella as the material killers. Di Carlo confirmed that Leggio had ordered the killing of Terranova. Ecco chi uccise Terranova, Corriere della Sera, 4 June 1997
Legacy
Despite the fact that his prosecutions of the Mafia in the 1960s eventually failed in Court, Terranova was a pioneer in investigating the Mafia. His verdicts always included historical and theoretical aspects.Lupo, History of the Mafia, p. 210 He determined that there was "only one Mafia, neither old or young, neither good nor bad," but "efficient and dangerous, divided into clusters or groups or 'families,' or more accurate still, Cosca.'" At the time, his analysis of the Mafia was modern and advanced. In the 1960s, it was not understood and accepted by the judiciary, which considered him too "bold" or worse, "imaginative". The revelations in 1984 of a pentito (informant) from the Mafia, Tommaso Buscetta, would prove him right.
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Categories: 1921 Births, 1979 Deaths, People From Petralia Sottana, Deputies Of Legislature Vi Of Italy, Deputies Of Legislature Vii Of Italy, Antimafia, Judges Murdered By The Corleonesi, Assassinated Sicilian Politicians, People Murdered In Sicily, 20th-century Italian Judges, Politicians Assassinated In 1979
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