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Italian mafia, the advantage of the "desert judiciary"

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REPORTAGE - La popolazione di questa città del sud della Sicilia si ribella contro “la piovra”, la giustizia non la segue.

Lucia Lotti si strozza citando i titoli della stampa italiana: Gela sarebbe la città più mafiosa della Sicilia, la “pattumiera” d’Italia. Per il procuratore capo della procura antimafia, questi “stereotipi soffocanti” Gela who want to make the "prototype of a place lost forever" does not take into account the strong shooting in the city has shown. One shot that makes the [more] brutal threats to the heavy Prosecutor: between now and September, the Prosecutor is likely to be abandoned en masse by his deputies.

"The Court of Gela is home to the legality of the state," proclaims a poster of the Catholic organizations of the left, the ACLI. "You do not pay," said a large banner that bar the entrance door of City Hall. Following a phone number they can turn to those who want to denounce the "lace" (in the original text in Italian N.d.T.), il racket mafioso. Nel giro di qualche mese, quasi un centinaio di commercianti e piccoli industriali lo hanno fatto arrestare 850 membri della “piovra”. In tempi normali, è necessario un coraggio che sconfina nell’eroismo con l’eroismo per compiere il passo verso la legalità. La mafia ha buona memoria. Non è mai troppo tardi per regolare i suoi conti. Ma in questa città della costa Sud della Sicilia, dove è stato firmato il primo trattato di pace del mondo nell’anno 425 a.C., è nata una formidabile speranza. Su istigazione di magistrati determinati e di un dinamico sindaco di 58 anni, Rosario Crocetta, prende forma un movimento di rivolta civile.

Sarebbe ora. Alla fine degli anni 90, Gela largely deserved its reputation as an outpost of hell, a war between two rival organizations, Cosa Nostra and Stidda , local variation, 400 had died before the "families" to proclaim "peace mafia ". Gela now has 85,000 inhabitants (that) which makes it the fifth largest city in Sicily. Urban planning is anarchic, with its crumbling neighborhoods, its streets with no name, 14,000 illegal constructions, a petrochemical complex built in the '60s that looks great dream beaches and dozens of carcasses abandoned industrial. Not to mention the erratic distribution of water, which leaves the city dry for days.

Potere d’infiltrazione

“Gela sta cambiando”, afferma il carabiniere di turno davanti al palazzo di giustizia. Il procuratore arriva ben scortata nella sua BMW 330 blindata e guadagna rapidamente i suoi uffici. Più tardi, scrutata da decine di sguardi, condurrà il corrispondente di Le Figaro in un giro a piedi nella città, senz’altra protezione che una guardia del corpo. Storia che dimostra che una “passeggiata” sul Corso, che si riempie di gente la sera, non è molto più rischiosa che nella sua Genova natale.

Il pericolo, tuttavia, è onnipresente. Ogni anno, Gela conta 150 arson, simple acts of intimidation. With the financial crisis, usury and racketeering are booming. According to the mayor Crocetta, the "commissioning rule", otherwise known as the payment of "protection money", it costs on average € 500 per month to the merchant or industrialist. At Gela, 3000 would be in this situation. The unfortunate who can not pay must yield to the mob, through front men, unaparte of their activities, in which [the mob] recycles its gains.

infiltration of the mafia's power knows no bounds. In late March, Lucia Lotti has been arrested seven affiliated Stidda as a former terrorist. Were planning to kidnap a director of a bank Ragusa. One of them ran the yacht club, meeting place of the usual best companies Gela. The police have seized explosives and Kalashnikovs. The wiretaps have been decisive.

Another example: the president of a large cooperative of Gela, some Italian Stefano was struck by the justice. Had reported a gang that pillaged. But not to say that this band was recycled for substantial illicit funds. He tried to change becoming elected vice-chairman of the local anti-racketeering. "It could be Pirandello. It is not everyday that a miserable farce, "arises the playwright Silvia Grasso.

"Neither the time nor the means"

For Crocetta, Gela is the first city in Italy to have rebelled en masse against the Mafia. "The we are releasing," proclaims the mayor. Character uncommon in the Italian South conformist, this mayor, a communist and a homosexual, has been in office for seven years. In June 2007, was re-elected in the first round with 65% of the vote. He moved away from the mafia businesses public markets, the administration purged of its officers suspects, including the wife of a local boss, publicly denounced the leaders of clans and created a committee of four entrepreneurs struggle against the "lace". A "change epochal "he says. He lives under cover and moved in an armored car.

But the courthouse lacks effective. "In the short term, there will be no more replacements [prosecutors] to Gela," said another prosecutor, Anna Hemp. A law passed in 2007 prevents prosecutors from the left to recruit magistrates who have less than four years of service. Last competition, out of a hundred candidates, no one has volunteered to Gela. In September, once the temporary replacements, the court will have only a substitute Hemp instead of five. Lucia Cotti know the same situation.

Chief Prosecutor of the judicial district of Caltanissetta (Central Sicily) to which [the prosecutor] Gela and head of the anti-Mafia prosecutor, Sergio Lari track an alarming situation: "Unless a Palermo and Catania , most of the Sicilian prosecutors work with the 50% of its workforce. I have neither the time nor the means to close the investigation. " In addition there are reductions in funding: it has already spent € 70,000 allocated for the operating costs of 2009, the year before had had 400000. "Overall, we lost two thirds of the appropriations," he says.

At the end of the afternoon, the courthouse is strangely deserted. Corridors and empty offices. There were no police on duty to plan the prosecutor, however, has a close protection. The Italian justice system no longer has the means to pay. The Mafia took advantage.

[Original article "in Gela, the Mafia profire du" desert judiciaire '"Richard Heuzé]

ItaliaDall'Estero