ITALY: The arrest of the Mafia's top boss Bernardo Provenzano after years on the run is not a mortal blow to the mob and may spark a bloody war of succession unless heirs-in-waiting keep the peace

Record ID: 664749

  • Title: ITALY: The arrest of the Mafia's top boss Bernardo Provenzano after years on the run is not a mortal blow to the mob and may spark a bloody war of succession unless heirs-in-waiting keep the peace
  • Date: 2nd May 2006
  • Summary: (BN09) PALERMO, SICILY, ITALY (APRIL 12, 2006) (REUTERS) SOUNDBITE (Italian) POLICE OFFICER WHO ARRESTED PROVENZANO, RENATO CORTESE, SAYING: "He definitely wasn't expecting us. He tried to lock the door and take refuge inside. His expression was one of absolute surprise at our intervention. After a few seconds his face changed to an expression of resignation and in an acknowledgement that this was the end of his fugitive days."
  • Embargoed: 17th May 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Police
  • Reuters ID: LVAEJSD0RHNL9O7JMPD0PSXJ5PL5
  • Story Text: Boss of bosses, mafia leader Bernardo Provenzano was arrested on April 11, 2006 after 43 years on the run - he was Italy's most wanted man. But his capture is unlikely to be anything other than the end of his era in the mob and the start of a new one.
    Seventy-three-year-old Provenzano was captured the day after the Italian election - in an isolated, unheated and rundown three-room stone farmhouse barely a mile from Corleone, his home town, which inspired the Mafia family name in "The Godfather" films and books.
    In an un-Hollywood-like twist to the tale he was betrayed not by an informer but by a package containing clean underpants and socks sent by his common-law wife Saveria Palazzolo who runs a laundry in the town.
    The pack of laundry was handed to one of a team of trusted messengers who for years had taken messages and packages to and from "the Godfather". This time however they were watched by police as well as by television surveillance cameras. The watchers saw the door of the farmhouse open "a tiny crack" and a hand emerge to receive the package. The signal was then given to storm the house.
    The squalor of his hideout bares testimony to the fact that power and not wealth is the primary objective in Italy's mafia. Ricotta cheese making apparatus littered the dirty barn where he had been hiding, the smell of sheep from the next door barn was almost over powering and a pot of chicory was said to have been ready to eat on top of a makeshift stove. A Madonna on the wall was probably the most company Provenzano permitted himself.
    He had been running his affairs through the use of "pizzini" small scraps of paper sent with trusted couriers to deliver his wishes.
    "He definitely wasn't expecting us," said the police officer who arrested Provenzano, Renato Cortese.
    "He tried to lock the door and take refuge inside. His expression was one of absolute surprise at our intervention. After a few seconds his face changed to an expression of resignation and in an acknowledgement that this was the end of his fugitive days," Cortese said.
    Shortly after the arrest Provenzano wearing a blue vest with the words "Police" blazoned over the front was taken to Palermo, roads into the city were closed to traffic. From here he was later moved to a high security prison on Italy's mainland at Terni in Umbria.
    Certainly a chapter has come to an end for the medieval mountain town of Corleone. Decades before Mario Puzo borrowed its name for his novel and Marlon Brando brought "The Godfather" to life with a throaty voice, Corleone had its own bloody story. Bernardo Provenzano was the reputed chief of Cosa Nostra across Sicily and whilst many townsfolk may be breathing a sigh of relief many who share their lives with mafiosi await the next saga to be written.
    It is difficult to gauge the true feeling in the town as most people do not talk to the press - in fact they simply do not talk.
    "I don't know anything, I don't know this guy," said a Corleone pensioner.
    "Here none of us have seen anything or done anything," said another pensioner with a face marked by age.
    Only the younger inhabitants and the town's mayor seemed a little more hopeful of change.
    "It's great news for Corleone," said a young mother who did not want to be named.
    "For our administration and for all the citizens of Corleone this really is the beginning of a new era," said mayor Nicolo Nicolosi.
    The last Mafia wars to bloody Sicily took place in the late 1980s when the Corleone clan headed by Toto "the beast" Riina, Provenzano, Leoluca Bagarella and Luciano Liggio wiped out most of their enemies. The victors then turned their attention to the state and killed magistrates, including Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in twin bomb attacks in 1992.
    Provenzano took over when Riina was arrested in 1993 after 23 years on the run and decided that it would be better for business if the Mafia kept a lower profile.
    Now, investigators are waiting to see if the "Pax Mafiosa" will stick together or fall apart.
    "Who will rule "Cosa Nostra" from tomorrow, nobody knows. Probably not even inside "Cosa Nostra" said the man who co-ordinated the investigations into Provenzano, main court prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatore.
    "It is clear that such a traumatic event for the organisation, like the arrest of the recognised and for the moment unchallenged chief - because this is what Provenzano was as we know from all our investigations - it will represent a moment of crisis that the mafia will have to face and will have to demonstrate that they can overcome as, to tell you the truth, has happened in the past. But this is not something they can do in 24 hours," he said.
    Even if the police operation that led to Provenzano's arrest was a "brilliant success" there are at least two people qualified to take his place -- Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Matteo Messina Denaro. In a website that emerged following Provenzano's arrest people were offered the opportunity to vote for their preferred leader but the reality is somewhat more serious.
    Like their master and mentor, they have been on the run for some time -- Lo Piccolo since 1983, Messina Denaro since 1993. Lo Piccolo, a gang boss from the Mafia's Resuttana district in Palermo, is 63 and considered "old school" and to have been the closest to Provenzano all these years.
    Messina Denaro, from the grim western Sicilian provincial city of Castelvetrano, is only 46 and known as the "playboy boss" because he likes fast cars, women, and gold watches.
    For many who have lived the reality of the mafia it is the tight smile seen on Provenzano's face that speaks volumes. Letizia Battaglia has documented the worst period in mafia-related crime from 1975 to 1993 through her photographs. At one point Battaglia says things were so bad they photographed up to five murders a day.
    "Provenzano's smile is a smile I have encountered before," Battaglia said. "It is a cruel smile, a smile of someone who will not surrender - it frightens us because we know what is behind that smile. I don't like that smile and I am sure nobody likes it."
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