The Sacco Gang by Andrea Camilleri

Author:Andrea Camilleri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions UK
Published: 2018-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

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Mori, among other things, knew Sicily well.

He’d already been there just after the War, to put down the riots born of the disappointment of the peasantry, who had been promised, for the umpteenth time—to stoke their patriotic spirits during the conflict—their own lands for cultivation, only to see the promise broken for the umpteenth time.

Later appointed Prefect of Bologna, he was transferred by the Fascists because he’d sent dozens of them to jail after the terrible violence at Palazzo d’Accursio in 1920.

The prefect, in short, was someone who wasn’t afraid of anyone.

And he was as honest a functionary as he was ruthless.

Mussolini sent him back to Sicily with vast powers.

Mori fought the Mafia by using the exact same methods as them, and by having at his disposal the Carabinieri, the police, special forces who answered only to him, and even certain sectors of the army.

“Under the pretext of fighting the Mafia, they set aside general principles of law, as well as constitutional guarantees under the Albertine Statute, the observation of habeas corpus for all citizens, criminal trial safeguards, and the correct application of the very statutes concerning law enforcement. Whole organs of the government, with the excuse of enforcing the law, made no bones about operating outside the law and even against the law [ . . . ]. They would organize veritable raids to execute arrest warrants [ . . . ] In a few cases, they even went so far as to besiege a whole town (the classic example being Gangi sulle Madonie) using not only the police but the army. Then, in a more general way, if they couldn’t get their hands on the alleged mafiosi, they would arrest their family members—the father, a brother, sometimes even the mother or wife—to force the fugitive or fugitives to turn themselves in. [ . . . ] [T]he barbarous, illegal recourse to torture, using the cassetta4 or other instruments of refined, sadistic cruelty, was not infrequent.” (F. Renda, Storia della Sicilia dal 1860 al 1970, vol. II, Palermo 1985.)

A dictatorship can allow itself such things, and more.

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