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Pentita
''Pentito'' (; lit. "repentant"; plural: ''pentiti'') is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public prosecutor. The judicial category of ''pentiti'' was originally created in 1970s to combat violence and terrorism during the period of left- and right-wing terrorism known as the Years of Lead. During the 1986–87 Maxi Trial, and after the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, the term was increasingly applied to former members of organized crime who had abandoned their organization and started helping investigators. Role and benefits In exchange for the information they deliver, ''pentiti'' receive shorter sentences for their crimes, in some cases even freedom. In the Italian judicial system, ''pentiti'' can obtain personal protection, a new name, and some money to start a new life in another place, possibly abroad. This practice is c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta (; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was an 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 participated in criminal activity in Italy, the United States and Brazil before being arrested and extradited from Brazil to Italy. He became disillusioned with the Mafia after the murders of several of his family members, and in 1984, decided to cooperate with the authorities. He provided important testimony at the 1986/87 Maxi Trial, the largest anti-Mafia trial in history. After the murder of the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, Buscetta gave further testimony to the Antimafia Commission linking Italian politicians to the Mafia. Buscetta entered the Witness Protection Program in the United States, where he remained until his death in 2000. Early life Tommaso Buscetta was born on 13 July 1928, in Palermo, Sicily, the youngest of 17 childr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enzo Tortora
Enzo Tortora (30 November 1928 – 18 May 1988) was an Italian TV host on national RAI television, who was unjustly convicted of being a member of the Camorra and drug trafficking in 1985, and sentenced to 10 years in jail. He was acquitted of all charges by the Cassation Court in 1987. Early career Tortora was born in Genoa, Italy. After taking a degree in journalism in his native city, he worked in theatre with Paolo Villaggio before joining the RAI – Italy's state radio and television corporation – as a radio announcer. In 1956, he first appeared on television and presented programmes such as '' Domenica Sportiva'' and '' Giochi senza frontiere''. In 1969, he was fired by RAI when he described the company's managers as a group of boy scouts trying to pilot a supersonic jet plane unsuccessfully. Subsequently, he worked for several private TV stations and various newspapers, before returning to RAI in 1977. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonino Calderone
Antonino Calderone (October 24, 1935January 10, 2013) was a Sicilian Mafioso who turned state witness (''pentito'') in 1987 after his arrest in 1986. Antonino was born in Catania, the brother of Giuseppe Calderone, the boss of the local Mafia. Antonino's memoirs, ''Men of Dishonor: Inside the Sicilian Mafia'', were published in 1992 with Antimafia sociologist Pino Arlacchi and are considered a handbook for understanding Cosa Nostra and the life of a mafioso. It was translated into many languages. Mafia career Originally, Catania was not a traditional Mafia area such as the western part of Sicily. According to Antonino Calderone, the first Mafia family in Catania was started by Antonio Saitta. He had been prosecuted by Mussolini’s ''Iron Prefect'', Cesare Mori. One of his daughters was the mother of Giuseppe and Antonino Calderone. Another uncle had helped the Mafia get back on its feet after World War II, organizing the black market in contraband cigarettes. Antonino Caldero ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corleonesi
The Corleonesi Mafia clan was a faction within the Corleone family of the Sicilian Mafia, formed in the 1970s. Notable leaders included Luciano Leggio, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, and Leoluca Bagarella. Corleonesi affiliates were not restricted to mafiosi of Corleone. During the Second Mafia War in the early 1980s, the Corleonesi clan opposed the faction of the Palermitans represented, among others, by Gaetano Badalamenti, Stefano Bontate and Salvatore Inzerillo. The victory of the Corleonesi, and in particular the rise of Totò Riina, marked a new era in the history of the Sicilian Mafia. Between 1992 and 1993, the Corleonesi initiated a season of attacks against the state, followed by the State-Mafia Pact. History Beginnings In February 1971, the Corleonesi clan's first boss, Luciano Leggio, ordered the kidnapping for extortion of Antonino Caruso, son of the industrialist Giacomo Caruso, and also that of the son of the builder Francesco Vassallo in Palermo. Legg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caccamo
Caccamo (Sicilian language, Sicilian: ''Càccamu'') is a town and ''comune'' located on the Tyrrhenian Sea, Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily in the Metropolitan City of Palermo. History The official founding of Caccamo was not until 1093, when the Normans started to build the castle on a rocky spur overlooking a cliff, Castello di Caccamo. The castle itself is actually now being slowly converted into a museum. On the ground level of the castle is a restaurant "A Castellana". Submerged within the Rosamarina lake is a stone bridge built in 1307 on the road that once linked the town with Palermo. The city contains an attractive 11th-century cathedral, which was remodeled in 1477 and 1614. On the side of the cathedral are two churches. The Chiesa dell'Anime del Purgatorio ''(Church of the Souls of Purgatory)'' features some stucco work in the eastern end and an 18th-century organ. In the downstairs are catacombs where the skeletons of a number of townspeople lie in niches along the wall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè (; born 21 July 1945) is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002. Giuffrè was known in Mafia circles as ("Small Hand"), because his right hand was crippled by polio. Other sources claim he lost his hand in a hunting accident."Mafia, preso Giuffrè, fedelissimo di Provenzano" ''''. 17 April 2002. Giuffrè was trained as an agricultural sciences specialist. His rise in the Mafia ran parallel to the ascension of the Corleonesi clan headed by |
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti ( , ; 14 January 1919 – 6 May 2013) was an Italian politician and statesman who served as the 41st prime minister of Italy in seven governments (1972–1973, 1976–1979, and 1989–1992) and leader of the Christian Democracy party; he was the sixth-longest-serving prime minister since the Italian unification and the second-longest-serving post-war prime minister. Andreotti is widely considered the most powerful and prominent politician of the so-called First Republic. Beginning as a protégé of Alcide De Gasperi, Andreotti achieved cabinet rank at a young age and occupied all the major offices of state over the course of a 40-year political career, being seen as a reassuring figure by the civil service, business community, and Vatican. In foreign policy, he guided Italy's European Union integration and established closer relations with the Arab world. Admirers of Andreotti saw him as having mediated political and social contradictions, enabling the tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Cataldo, Sicily
San Cataldo ( Sicilian: ''San Catallu'' or ''San Cataddu'') is a Sicilian town and ''comune'' in the province of Caltanissetta, in the southwestern part of the island of Sicily. Physical geography San Cataldo rises in an internal hilly area, located at 625 meters above sea level, which extends north of the town, between the municipalities of Serradifalco, Mussomeli, Caltanissetta, located within the Sicilian Solfifero plateau, an ancient area mining. It is 63 km from Agrigento, 9 km from Caltanissetta, 50 km from Enna, 150 km from Ragusa. It is crossed by a single river, the "Salito", formed by springs that arise from the slopes of Mount Schiavo near the town of Santa Caterina Villarmosa. The inhabited area extends into the plateau located between Portella del Tauro and Babbaurra, rich in partially drinkable water wells. See also *Catald Catald of Taranto (also Cataldus, Cathaluds, Cathaldus, Cat(t)aldo, Cathal; fl. 7th century) was an Irish monk. Biography Cataldus was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonardo Messina
Leonardo "Narduzzo" Messina (born San Cataldo, September 22, 1955) is a Sicilian former 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" ( it, Operazione Leopardo). Messina has implicated several politicians and government officials with ties to Sicilian Mafia, in particular Giulio Andreotti, 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.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', p. 362 "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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 accounts of the inner-workings of the Sicilian Mafia. His testimonies were crucial in the Maxi Trial against the Sicilian Mafia in Palermo and the Pizza Connection trial in New York City in the mid 1980s. Early Mafia career Contorno was born in Palermo. His father Antonino had been a mafioso from the later dissolved Corso Calatafimi Mafia family. Salvatore Contorno was a godson of Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, who would go on to become the secretary of the Sicilian Mafia Commission. In 1975, the butcher ''Totuccio'' Contorno was initiated in the Santa Maria di Gesù Mafia family in Palermo, then led by Stefano Bontade, an influential member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission and a close ally of Ciaschiteddu. Contorno and Bontade used to be hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonardo Vitale
Leonardo Vitale (; 27 June 1941 – 2 December 1984) was a member of the Sicilian Mafia who was one of the first to become an informant, or ''pentito'', although originally his confessions were not taken seriously. Vitale was a " man of honour" or member of the Altarello di Baida ''cosca'' or family, Altarello being a small village just outside Palermo. Background In 1960, at the age of 19, Vitale was affiliated to the clan mafia of Altarello, which was led by his uncle Giovanbattista "Titta". Vitale carried out extortions of construction companies on the orders of his uncle and his associate Giuseppe Calò, later being promoted to capodecina. In 1972, Vitale was arrested on suspicion of being implicated in the kidnapping of the manufacturer Luciano Cassina, but was released after a week of isolation in the prison of Asinara. Whilst held in custody, he had showed signs of depression that led to coprophagia and practiced self mutilation as his own act of contrition; doctors subjec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stress (medicine)
Stress, either physiological, biological or psychological, is an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition. Stress is the body's method of reacting to a condition such as a threat, challenge or physical and psychological barrier. There are two hormones that an individual produces during a stressful situation, these are well known as adrenaline and cortisol. There are two kinds of stress hormone levels. Resting (basal) cortisol levels are normal everyday quantities that are essential for standard functioning. Reactive cortisol levels are increases in cortisol in response to stressors. Stimuli that alter an organism's environment are responded to by multiple systems in the body. In humans and most mammals, the autonomic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis are the two major systems that respond to stress. The sympathoadrenal medullary (SAM) axis may activate the fight-or-flight response through the sympathetic nervous system, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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