Cesare Terranova
Encyclopedia
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
and politician from Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
notable for his anti-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...
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 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...
in 1979. Cesare Terranova can be considered as the predecessor of the magistrates 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...
and 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....
who were also killed by the Mafia in 1992.
Career
In the 1960s, Terranova helped bring numerous Mafiosi to trial and subsequent imprisonment. At the time the prosecution was separated in an examining phase (the so-called instruction phase) and a prosecuting phase. Terranova led the examining office. He was a key figure in the Trial of the 114 which saw many prominent Mafiosi on trial for their role in the First Mafia War in the early 1960s that ended with the Ciaculli massacreCiaculli massacre
The Ciaculli massacre on 30 June 1963 was caused by a car bomb that exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, head of the Sicilian Mafia...
on June 30, 1963. On May 31, 1965, he ordered the prosecution of 114 mafiosi.
However, despite Terranova’s efforts, the sentence of the Trial of the 114 on December 22, 1968, by the Court of Catanzaro was a disappointment and many prominent mafiosi were acquitted. All but 10 of the 114 defendants were acquitted. Angelo La Barbera
Angelo La Barbera
Angelo La Barbera was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Together with his brother Salvatore La Barbera he ruled the Mafia family of Palermo Centro...
got 22 years and Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...
14 years for two so-called “white deaths” - the so-called lupara bianca
Lupara
Lupara is an Italian word used to refer to a sawn-off shotgun of the break-open type. It is traditionally associated with Cosa Nostra, the Italian organized crime group dominant in Sicily for their use of it in vendettas, defense—such as its use against Mussolini's army when he decided to break up...
which is used to refer to a mafia-style murder in which the victim's body is deliberately hidden.
Terranova was the first to acknowledge the existence of a Sicilian Mafia 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...
. He based himself on a confidential report of the Carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...
of May 28, 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.
Terranova also led investigations into the connections between the Mafia and politics. He looked into the exploits of the prominent Sicilian politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
Salvatore Lima as mayor of Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
and concluded that Lima was in league with a number of Mafiosi, including Angelo La Barbera
Angelo La Barbera
Angelo La Barbera was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Together with his brother Salvatore La Barbera he ruled the Mafia family of Palermo Centro...
. 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." However, nothing came of his enquiries or allegations.
Prosecuting the Corleonesi
Terranova made little attempt to hide the fact that his ambition was to bring Luciano LeggioLuciano Leggio
Luciano Leggio was an Italian criminal and leading figure of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the head of the Corleonesi, the Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone...
, the boss of the Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
Mafia Family – known as the Corleonesi – to justice. In 1965 Terranova ordered the prosecution of over sixty Corleonesi, including Leggio (Trial Leggio + 63), for a series of murders in Corleone between 1958 and 1963. The most prominent victim had been the Mafia-boss of Corleone, Michele Navarra
Michele Navarra
Michele Navarra was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was a qualified physician and headed the Mafia Family from the town of Corleone...
.
However, the sentence of the Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
Court on June 10, 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. Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
– Leggio's eventual successor – was acquitted in 1969 and remained at large until his capture in 1993.
The prosecution appealed successfully against the Catanzaro verdict that had acquitted Leggio and had him tried in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
in 1970. This time Leggio was found guilty, although he had left jail after the Catanzaro trial and it was not until 1974 that Leggio was finally captured again and taken into custody.
Antimafia Commission
In May 1972 Terranova was elected as a representative in the Italian Parliament for the Independent Left under the auspices of the Italian Communist PartyItalian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
(PCI). He became the secretary of the 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”...
that was established in 1963 after the Ciaculli massacre
Ciaculli massacre
The Ciaculli massacre on 30 June 1963 was caused by a car bomb that exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, head of the Sicilian Mafia...
. He was re-elected in 1976. Terranova together with PCI deputy Pio La Torre
Pio La Torre
Pio La Torre was a leader of the Italian Communist Party...
wrote the minority report of the Antimafia Commission that was published in 1976, which pointed to links between the Mafia and prominent politicians in particular of the Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana).
Terranova had urged his colleagues of the majority to take their responsibility. According to the minority report:
- … it would be a grave error on the part of the Commission to accept the theory that the Mafia-political link has been eliminated. Even today the behaviour of the ruling DC group in the running of the City and the Provincional Councils offers the most favourable terrain for the perpetuation of the system of Mafia power.
However, the reports and the documentation of the Antimafia Commission were essentially disregarded. Terranova would talk of “thirteen wasted years” of the Antimafia Commission, and did not seek re-election again.
Death
At the end of the legislature in June 1979, Cesare Terranova asked to be re-instated in the judiciary and was appointed as the chief examining magistrate at the Court in Palermo. However, on September 25, 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.Luciano Leggio
Luciano Leggio
Luciano Leggio was an Italian criminal and leading figure of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the head of the Corleonesi, the Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone...
was charged with ordering Terranova's murder at 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...
but was acquitted due to insufficient evidence. Leggio hated Terranova. During an interrogation preparing the Trial of the 114, 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.
New Trial
In 1997 the prosecution office in Reggio Calabria re-opened the murder investigation after the pentitiPentito
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...
Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo is a member of the Mafia who turned state witness in 1996...
and Gaspare Mutolo
Gaspare Mutolo
Gaspare Mutolo is a Sicilian mafioso, also known as "Asparino". In 1992 he became a pentito . He was the first mafioso who spoke about the connections between Cosa Nostra and Italian politicians...
named the mafiosi Giuseppe Madonia and Leoluca Bagarella
Leoluca Bagarella
Leoluca Bagarella is an Italian criminal and member of the Sicilian Mafia. He is from the town of Corleone and was a member of the Corleonesi.-Biography:...
as the material killers. Di Carlo confirmed that Leggio had ordered the killing of Terranova. In 1974, when the Sicilian Mafia 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...
was reorganized, Leggio through Totò Riina (Leggio was in jail) asked the Commission gathered at Michele Greco
Michele Greco
Michele Greco was a member of the Sicilian Mafia, previously incarcerated for multiple murders. His nickname was "il Papa" because of his ability to mediate between different Mafia families...
’s estate Favarella for permission. The Commission decided, on instigation of Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Don Tano Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s...
, 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 January 15, 2000, Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
, Bernardo Brusca
Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia. He murdered the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992 and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders but was unable to remember the exact number...
, Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...
, Francesco Madonia
Francesco Madonia
Francesco Ciccio Madonia was the Mafia boss of the San Lorenzo-Pallavicino area in Palermo. In 1978 he became a member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission....
, Pippo Calò
Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
, Nenè Geraci
Nenè Geraci
Antonio Geraci , better known as Nenè or il vecchio , is the historical boss of the Mafia in Partinico, in the province of Palermo. Geraci sat on the Sicilian Mafia Commission since the mid 1970s and belonged to the hard line faction allied with the Corleonesi of Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano...
and Michele Greco
Michele Greco
Michele Greco was a member of the Sicilian Mafia, previously incarcerated for multiple murders. His nickname was "il Papa" because of his ability to mediate between different Mafia families...
(all members of the Sicilian Mafia 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...
at the time of the murder) were convicted to life sentences for ordering the murder of Terranova (Leggio had died). However, Leoluca Bagarella, Giuseppe Madonia and Giuseppe Farinella
Giuseppe Farinella
Giuseppe Farinella is a Sicilian mafioso, boss of the San Mauro Castelverde family and a one-time member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission....
were acquitted as the material killers. After 25 years, in October 2004, the Supreme Court confirmed the life sentences for Totò Riina, Michele Greco
Michele Greco
Michele Greco was a member of the Sicilian Mafia, previously incarcerated for multiple murders. His nickname was "il Papa" because of his ability to mediate between different Mafia families...
, Nenè Geraci
Nenè Geraci
Antonio Geraci , better known as Nenè or il vecchio , is the historical boss of the Mafia in Partinico, in the province of Palermo. Geraci sat on the Sicilian Mafia Commission since the mid 1970s and belonged to the hard line faction allied with the Corleonesi of Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano...
and Francesco Madonia
Francesco Madonia
Francesco Ciccio Madonia was the Mafia boss of the San Lorenzo-Pallavicino area in Palermo. In 1978 he became a member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission....
.
Cesare Terranova’s widow Giovanna would become a prominent personality in the Antimafia movement after her husband was murdered. She co-founded the first permanent civil anti-mafia organisation, the Associazione donne siciliane per la lotta contro la Mafia (Association of Sicilian Women against the Mafia). 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."
Quotes
- "The Mafia is oppression, arrogance, greed, self-enrichment, power and hegemony above and against all others. It is not an abstract concept, or a state of mind, or a literary term... It is a criminal organization regulated by unwritten but iron and inexorable rules... The myth of a courageous and generous 'man of honour' must be destroyed, because a mafioso is just the opposite."
- "It is necessary to dismantle the myth of the mafioso as a brave and generous “man of honour”, since the mafioso is characterised by a totally opposite character…the mafioso shoots to the shoulder, by treachery, when he is secure to have the total control upon the victim… He is ready to any compromise, to any renunciation and to the worst mean actions in order to save himself in a dangerous situation… the consciousness that nobody will denounce him, and that hidden and influential forces will rush to his help, gives the mafioso arrogance and boldness, at least until the right and severe application of the law will reach him."