The shadow of the captured mafia godfather lurks in Sicily

The shadow of the Sicilian godfather Matteo Messina Denarocaptured on Monday in Palermo after 30 years on the run, continues to lurk in his hometown, Castelvetrano, where few express their satisfaction and many remain silent.

On the streets of this city of about 30,000 souls, most avoid answering questions from AFP journalists about the arrest of the last great Cosa Nostra boss, 60, arrested at a clinic where he was being treated for cancer.

Many passers-by hide behind their umbrellas or quicken their pace so as not to respond, their faces serious and even hostile.

“In this town we don’t like to talk much”whispers an old man, visibly exasperated by the hordes of journalists that have invaded his town.

“The mafia kills, but so does silence.”used to say Peppino Impastato, a Sicilian journalist executed by Cosa Nostra in 1978 after having denounced “the omerta”the silence that rules in Sicilian society.

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Michele, a 39-year-old architect, who was accompanied by his wife and baby, finally agrees to speak but on condition of anonymity.

“We are very happy, what happened should have happened a long time ago”it states.

“Now it’s up to us, the whole city, to change. We could have started long before the arrest”he admits bitterly.

Matteo Messina Denaro, a ruthless assassin, son of a feared godfather of the local mafia, led a criminal and economic empire from hiding, whose power extends throughout the island and reaches its capital, Palermo.

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pandora’s boxes

Faced with the historic arrest of Messina Denaro, the mayor of his hometown, Enzo Alfano, expresses his caution.

“We have turned a page, but it cannot be said that the mafia has been defeated”he warns.

“We can’t let our guard down” he underlines during an interview with AFP in his office, in the main square of the old town.

castelvetrano “It wants to get rid of this layer of lead that has prevented many of its inhabitants from breathing”He says.

“We want to present ourselves to the world for what we are: a beautiful city with an archaeological park” called Selinunte, which dates from Greek rule and which has a series of sumptuous temples facing the sea.

But, although the historic center looks good, the outskirts are in bad shape; the roads, full of potholes; the buildings, half built and the garbage, abandoned in the middle of the field.

The city, whose town hall had to be intervened by the State due to mafia crimes, has few funds. The mayor hopes that tourism will feed the coffers.

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The councilor, with a white beard, also hopes that “light is shed on the identity of those who helped the mafia boss to hide” for so many years

The godfather, sentenced several times in absentia to life imprisonment, is in a high-security prison in a region of central Italy.

The day before, he refused to testify in one of the many trials in which he is involved.

Marta Capaccioni, a 23-year-old anti-mafia activist, expects him to collaborate, “since he is not a simple executioner, but one of the main leaders of Cosa Nostra, who knows many secrets about the attacks against the anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Palolo Borsellino” in 1992.

The young woman, who lives in Palermo, traveled to see with her own eyes the godfather’s hideout, raided this week and located in a simple but comfortable building in Campobello di Mazzara, about 10 kilometers from Castelvetrano.

“So many Pandora’s boxes could be opened on the recent history of our country, on the political parties that have collaborated with the mafia”he says, as he wonders how Italy’s most wanted criminal was able to elude the police for so many years.

“It is a shame that he could have been a fugitive for 30 years calmly in his hometown thanks to the protections he had”she laments, outraged.

Source: AFP