The Antimafia Pool was a group of investigating magistrates at the Prosecuting Office of

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...

(

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

) who closely worked together sharing information and developing new investigative and prosecutorial strategies against the

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily ...

. An informal pool had been created by Judge Rocco Chinnici in the early 1980s following the example of anti-terrorism judges in Northern Italy in the 1970s.Jamieson, ''The Antimafia'', p. 29 Most important, they assumed collective responsibility for carrying Mafia prosecutions forward: all the members of the pool signed prosecutorial orders to avoid exposing any one of them to particular risk, such as the one that had cost Judge

Gaetano Costa Gaetano Costa (; Caltanissetta, 1 March 1916 - Palermo, 6 August 1980) was an Italian magistrate killed by the Cosa Nostra. Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, he was assassinated by the Mafia on 6 August 1980 while browsing books on a stall located o ...

his life. Costa had signed the indictments of 55 against the Mafia heroin-trafficking network of the Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino clan after virtually all of the other prosecutors in his office had declined to do so – a fact that leaked out of the office and eventually cost him his life. He was murdered on 6 August 1980, on the orders of

Salvatore Inzerillo Salvatore Inzerillo (; 20 August 1944 – 11 May 1981) was an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio (a diminutive for Salvatore). He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family. A prolific heroin traffick ...

.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 Press In July 1983, Rocco Chinnici was killed by the Mafia. His place as head of the ‘Office of Instruction’ (Ufficio istruzione), the investigative branch of the Prosecution Office of Palermo, was taken by

Antonino Caponnetto Antonino Caponnetto (5 September 1920 – 6 December 2002) was an Italian Antimafia magistrate. Biography Caponnetto was born in Caltanissetta in 1920. His career began in 1954 in Florence, but he became famous only in 1983, after Rocc ...

, who formalized the pool. Next to

Giovanni Falcone Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian ...

, the group included

Paolo Borsellino Paolo Emanuele Borsellino (; scn, Pàulu Borsellino; 19 January 1940 – 19 July 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying t ...

, Giuseppe Di Lello and Leonardo Guarnotta.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', pp. 85-90 The group subsequently pooled together several investigations into the Mafia, which would result in the

Maxi Trial The Maxi Trial ( it, Maxiprocesso) was a criminal trial against the Sicilian Mafia that took place in Palermo, Sicily. The trial lasted from 10 February 1986 (the first day of the Corte d'Assise) to 30 January 1992 (the final day of the Supreme ...

against the Mafia starting in February 1986 and which lasted until December 1987. The trial was held in a bunker-courthouse specially constructed for this purpose inside the walls of the Ucciardone prison in Palermo. A total of 475 mafiosi were indicted for a multitude of crimes relating to

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

activities, based primarily on testimonies given as evidence from former Mafia bosses turned informants, known as '' pentiti'', in particular

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 i ...

and Salvatore Contorno. Most were convicted and, to the surprise of many, the convictions were upheld several years later in January 1992, after the final stage of appeal. The importance of the trial was that the existence of Cosa Nostra was finally judicially confirmed.

References

Bibliography

*Jamieson, Alison (2000). ''The Antimafia: Italy’s fight against organized crime'', London: Macmillan, . *Schneider, Jane T. & Peter T. Schneider (2003).
Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo
', Berkeley: University of California Press * Stille, Alexander (1995). '' Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic'', New York: Vintage

References

Bibliography

Further reading