Pietro Aglieri
Encyclopedia
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...
from the Guadagna neighbourhood in 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...
. He is known as "'U Signurinu" (The Little Gentleman) for his relatively sophisticated education and refined manners. He had a classical education and studied Greek, Latin, philosophy, history and literature to a level that guaranteed him entry to university. Instead he chose for a career in Cosa Nostra. The British journal The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
listed him as the emerging man of the year 1995 in Italy.
Mafia career
Aglieri was a loyal supporter of 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...
clan of Totò 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...
and 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...
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...
. He gained Riina's favour by killing relatives of a rival Mafia bosses. He became the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Mafia family after Giovanni Bontade – the brother of Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
– was killed in 1988. Although active since the early 1980s, his name was not brought to prosecutors' attention until 1989.
As member 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...
, Aglieri was being tried in absentia for the 1992 bombing deaths of Italy's two top Mafia investigators, 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....
. He received a life sentence for the murder on judge Antonino Scopelliti on August 9, 1991, who was killed while preparing the final sentence for 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...
for the Court of Cassation. He was also on trial for the 1992 murder of Salvo Lima, a Sicilian politician with close links to 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...
, the former premier accused of Mafia association.
After the arrest of Riina in January 1993, Aglieri started to support Provenzano’s new less violent mafia strategy. The new guidelines were patience, compartmentalisation, coexistence with state institutions, and systematic infiltration of public finance. The diplomatic Provenzano tried to stem the flow of pentiti
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...
by not targeting their families, only using violence in case of absolute necessity.
On June 6, 1997, Aglieri was arrested in a disused lemon warehouse in the dilapidated industrial area Bagheria
Bagheria
Bagheria is a town and comune in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy.-Etymology:According to some sources, the name Bagheria originates from the Phoenician term Bayharia meaning "land that descends toward the sea." Other sources claim that it derives from the Arabic Bāb al-Gerib, or "windy...
together with his lieutenants, Natale Gambino and Giuseppe La Mattina. It took the authorities almost a year to locate him following the arrest of his right-hand man Carlo Greco. Apparently, Giovanni 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...
, a Riina loyalist arrested in May 1996, helped police identify Aglieri. He had been on the run since 1989.
Dissociation?
Article 41-bis prison regime
In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations...
) in return for recognizing the existence of Cosa Nostra and the authority of the Italian state.
Aglieri had been approached by Vigna in February 2000 in an attempt to get mafiosi to "dissociate" from Cosa Nostra — without becoming collaborators of justice — a method that was used successfully in the struggle against the Red Brigades
Red Brigades
The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...
. Ex-Red Brigades members could publicly recognise their errors without having to admit their own criminal responsibilities.
Aglieri proposed a meeting 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...
in a jail somewhere in Italy to convince Totò Riina to agree with the Mafia's surrender and to hand over the Mafia's armoury. Other bosses like Giuseppe "Piddu" Madonia, Nitto Santapaola, 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....
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....
appeared to agree.
Vigna also approached the mafiosi Piddu Madonia, Giuseppe Farinella and Salvatore Buscemi. Vigna’s covert attempts were controversial and were made public by a mole in the DNA. They were definitively frustrated when the centre-left government of Massimo D'Alema
Massimo D'Alema
Massimo D'Alema is an Italian politician. He is also a journalist and a former national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left...
resigned on April 25, 2000. Minister of Justice, Oliviero Diliberto
Oliviero Diliberto
Oliviero Diliberto is an Italian politician. He is the current leader of the Party of Italian Communists.- Early life :...
, was replaced with Piero Fassino
Piero Fassino
Pietro Franco "Piero" Fassino is an Italian politician with the Democratic Party, the current Mayor of Turin and a former national secretary of the Democrats of the Left party.-Biography:...
who stopped the negotiations.
Aglieri's letter in March 2002 was followed by the statements of 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:...
during a court appearance in July 2002 in which he suggested that unnamed politicians had failed to maintain agreements with the Mafia over prison conditions. That seemed to make an end to try to convince mafiosi to "dissociate" from the Mafia, not only because of resistance in the judiciary and the Anti-mafia movement, but also because of a rift within Cosa Nostra.
Devout catholic
Inside Aglieri’s hide out a little chapel was discovered after his arrest, a clear signal of his devoutness to the Catholic Church. The priest Mario Frittitta admitted in 1997 meeting Pietro Aglieri and celebrating Mass for him and his men on Christmas 1996 and Easter 1997 at the hideout. Father Frittitta told a court that he tried to persuade Aglieri to turn himself in, but not to testify against others. After his arrest Aglieri announced he wanted to study theology – but a leading Sicilian bishop refused him permission. Nevertheless, Aglieri started to study Church History with the La Sapienza University in Rome while staying the RebibbiaRebibbia
Rebibbia is a suburb of Rome, Italy, on the Via Tiburtina on the northeast edge of the city.The suburb, first developed at the start of the 20th century, consists almost completely of family homes, largely built with few floors and small gardens, in an almost rural style.The two churches of the Via...
prison.
In an interview with La Repubblica in March 2004, he said to prefer the harsh incarceration regime of 41-bis over being a collaborator of justice.