Twisting the law to serve criminal ends

Lankan sleuth’s studies of the Italian Mafia :

Janaka Perera

This is a study of how the legal process can be twisted to serve criminal objectives and dubious political agendas in the name of helping the oppressed. It also shows how so-called freedom fighters evolve into criminals terrorizing society.

Those who have seen the award winning movies Godfather I and Godfather II will have a fair idea of the vengeful and despicable nature of the Italian Mafia - also

known as the Sicilian Mafia. In the 1986 they were at the peak of their power when Sri Lanka’s Ramachandra Sunderalingam joined the Interpol - the France-based International Criminal Police Organization. Sunderalingam, an internationally-recognized narcotic drugs expert was senior DIG (Crimes), Colombo before retirement and was one of those who foresaw 30 years ago the rise of the North’s separatist insurgency.

The case studies he made on the Mafia for the Interpol throw much light on some remarkable similarities between this Italian criminal organization and the LTTE and their sympathizers worldwide.

Killing the law

In 1987-1997 `Sunda’- as his friends call him - served as Editor of the Interpol Drugs Bulletin and made dispatches to all Interpol member countries on Mafia activities. The organization became entrenched in parts of Italy engaging in large scale narcotic drugs trafficking among other illegal activity.

The Mafia went to the extent of killing not only rival gangsters, police and State administrators but even judges who delivered verdicts against them. One of the victims was Judge Giovanni Falcone whom Sunda met in Rome in 1992.

In 1984, two years before he joined the Interpol, the Mafia began a terror campaign against intrusive State institutions, targeting judges, politicians and other public figures in Italy. The Mafia or Mafioso had its origins in Sicily where the gabelloti were its forerunners. They were the mediators between landowner and peasant, the urban and rural societies.

In 1860 Mafia gangs joined Italian Patriot Giuseppe Garibaldis Red shirts in their battle to unify Italy. When the Allied Forces landed in Sicily in 1943 during World War II, the Mafia cooperated with them and this alliance determined Italy’s post-war history.

Until the mid 1980s it was almost impossible to for the police to prosecute Mafia crimes because Sicilians stuck to the code of omerta, which prevented them revealing any information to the authorities. In 1982, the Mafia assassinated Sicily’s Communist Party Chief Pio La Torre and a member of the Italys Anti-Mafia Commission. In the same year the gangsters killed the Prefect of Palermo, General Alberto Della Chiesa along with his wife and driver. In July 1983, when Chief Prosecutor Rocco Chinnici issued a warrant for the arrest of their killer Michele Greco, the prosecutor was blown up by a car bomb.

Anti-Mafia pools

His replacement, Antonio Caponetto formed an anti-Mafia pool in which Judge Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were members. Their courageous work led to the maxi-trial of 1986. The largest Mafia trial in history it began on February 10, 1986. The trial lasted 22 months and took place amid growing public support for the prosecutors and constant attempts to undermine their authority by the media and politicians. There were even pro-Mafia demonstrations and attacks on the proceedings by the Archbishop of Palermo!

However, a total of 344 defendants were convicted based on the testimony of over 1,000 witnesses who revealed a worldwide network of arms and drug trafficking.

One of the greatest achievements of the maxi-trials was to affirm the rule of law. Yet, the anti-Mafia pools work was systematically undone. In 1991, Italian Supreme Court Judge Corrado Carnevale alias the sentence killer began to throw out the convictions. He overturned the life sentence of a notorious Mafia gangster and released another - a drug trafficker - who immediately left the country.

By the time Carnevales term was over, only 60 of the original convictions were still in force. Policemen who had worked with Falcone and Borsellino were transferred from their posts and documents mysteriously mislaid.

Gradually, Falcone and Borsellino found themselves isolated and under attack. Bureaucratic inertia, professional envy, inefficiency and political obstruction made their positions increasingly untenable.

“I am a dead man,” Falcone told a group of fellow magistrates.

At the 1987 elections several political parties - in return for the Mafia’s support - forced a national referendum to reduce the judiciary powers. All of Italy’s major political parties, in the name of supporting defendants rights, colluded in this move. The Italian Parliament then promulgated a reformed penal code that made it more difficult for judges to order arrests and hold prisoners in jail pending trial. Even more ominously, the new code contained a provision under which prosecutors could be held liable for errors, opening a whole new field for defence lawyers to have convictions delayed or overturned.

Killing sprees

Correctly gauging the States weakness and its lack of support for the anti-Mafia pool, the gangsters resumed their killing spree, starting with the murder of Giuseppe Insalco, a Palermo former Mayor who revealed the links between the Government and the Mafia organization - Cosa Nostra. In September 1988, they killed three more prominent anti-Mafia figures. All over Sicily judges presiding over regional mafia trials were intimidated or bribed.

Cosa Nostra was now firmly ensconced in cities such as Milan and Bologna, buying construction companies and banks with profits from the narcotics drugs trade and then bidding for lucrative public works contracts in Sicily through legitimate businesses. On May 23, 1992 Judge Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, flew to Palermo from Rome on a Government plane. They had been scheduled to leave a day earlier, but changed their departure date at the last minute.

They were met at Palermo Airport by three police cars and seven bodyguards. The added precaution of helicopter surveillance formerly standard practice had been withdrawn to cut costs. Falcone decided to drive his own car, his wife beside him. His driver took a back seat.

When the convoy reached Capaci, a large charge of plastic explosive placed under the highway was detonated by remote control.

Three policemen in the lead car were killed instantly. Falcone and his wife were seriously injured and both died later.

The horrifying crime shocked Italy. Falcone had become a symbol of hope and the possibility of reform. The public regarded him as a martyr, and many suspected Government complicity in his murder. A strike was called in Sicily. The Italian Parliament declared day of mourning and suspended its sessions until, after the funeral. For almost the first time Palermo citizens openly displayed their grief and anger.

Only July 19, Falcones colleague Borsellino and five bodyguards were blown up by a car bomb placed outside his mothers house in Palermo.

According to Sunda these crimes caused panic in Government circles and requested Interpol assistance to deal with the situation. The assassinations eventually forced the Italian Government to act. Four days after Borsellinos death, Prime Minister Giuliano Amato sent 7,000 troops to Sicily in effect proclaiming martial law. New informers came to the States assistance and according to one of them Cosa Nostras aim: “To hold the State to ransom to force it to revoke the laws...”

Combating Mafia

Sunda recalls that in 1996 top Italian judges were visiting European Police agencies to get their full cooperation in curbing Mafia activity.

In the same year, Interpols Secretary General Ray Kendall told Sunda to be ready with a presentation to the Italian authorities on heroin trafficking by Mafia via the Balkan route to Italy and other countries.

The former DIG says: “Strangely, I was not notified of the date but told to standby one week Monday to Friday. The reason being that after the Falcone incident, the Italian top brass did not want to take any chances. Suddenly one Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. during the week I was asked to be present at 10 a.m. for the briefing. I gave it in the Interpols special auditorium to six senior Italian judges. They requested a CD copy of my presentation with all drug trafficking routes and case studies.”

Secretary General Kendall highly commended Sunda for his excellent contribution. It took a major effort on the part of the Italian authorities before they could bring down the Sicilian Mafia to its knees. Its head Bernardo Provenzano vanished and his whereabouts are unknown.

Mafia Robinhoods

Sundaralingam sees some these Mafia types trying to appear as philanthropists and respectable citizens by championing the cause of society’s less fortunate. The early life of these crime bosses perhaps contributed to this mindset. One example according to him is Colombian Drug Lord Pablo Escobar - the first Mafia leader to start a cocaine enterprise in Latin America. He was so poor when he was young that once he was sent home from school because he had no shoes. Escobar studied political science at Universidad de Antioquiq but was forced to drop out when he couldn’t afford to pay the fees.

This was the beginning of his criminal career. He assassinated presidential candidates, judges, police officers and senior military personnel, any one who worked against him. CNN called him the ‘Coke King of America’ and the BBC called him the ‘Prince of Darkness.’ His name appeared in the Forbes Magazine as one the richest men in the Americas. He owned innumerable luxury residencies and automobiles and in 1986 he attempted to enter Colombian politics, even offering to pay off the nation’s $10 billion national debt. A lifelong sports fan, he was credited with building football fields and multi-sports courts, as well as sponsoring little league football teams.

Escobar was responsible for the construction of many churches in Medellin, which gained him popularity. The people of Medellin called him ‘Robin Hood,’ as he helped the poor with hospitals, schools, roads, etc. According to a Colombian Police officer, a friend of Sundaralingam, even today after his violent death 17 years ago, (1993) his admirers continue to place flowers at his graveyard.