Antonio Salvo
Encyclopedia
Antonio Nino Salvo and his cousin Ignazio Salvo (1932 – September 17, 1992) were two wealthy businessmen from the town of Salemi
in the province of Trapani
. They had strong political connections with the Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana), in particular with the former mayor of Palermo
, Salvo Lima, and Giulio Andreotti
. At the Maxi Trial
against the Mafia in the mid 1980s, they were convicted of being Mafia members.
Salvo Lima arranged an unusually lucrative concession to collect taxes in Sicily for the Salvo cousins island (tax collection was contracted out by the government), in exchange for their loyalty to Lima and the Andreotti
faction of the DC. The Salvos were allowed 10 percent of the take – three times as much as the national average of 3.3 percent. Subsequently, the Salvos expanded their economic activity to many other areas such agribusiness (lavishly subsidised by the European Union and Italian government) and tourism. They owned the Zagarella Hotel complex in Santa Flavia
, near Palermo.
and Bontade
backed the regional Sicilian government of Silvio Milazzo
, an atypical coalition government that was supported by Communists
, Monarchists
, Neo-Fascists
and dissident Christian Democrats. The government was formed in protest against infringement on Sicilian autonomy and threat to Sicilian patronage by the DC party headquarters in Rome. During that time they acquired the private concession for collecting taxes in Sicily with extremely favourable conditions. To consolidate the privilege, the Salvos unscrupulously withdrew their support for Milazzo to ally themselves with the mainstream Christian Democrats which tried to regain control of the region to maintain their cliental power base.
From then until the mid-1980s the Salvos were among the most powerful businessmen in the economic, political and social life of Sicily – until they were prosecuted by Palermo’s Antimafia pool that included Giovanni Falcone
and Paolo Borsellino
. They controlled the Christian Democratic party branch in the Province of Trapani
that guaranteed them great influence over the regional decision making of the DC. Mafia boss Francesco Paolo Bontade
and later his son Stefano Bontade
sustained a close relationship with the Salvo cousins, which allowed them access to influential regional and even politicians.
had "friendly and even direct ties" with top men in the so-called moderate wing of Cosa Nostra, Gaetano Badalamenti
and Stefano Bontade
, favoured by the connection between them and Salvo Lima through the Salvos. The judges considered that Andreotti had ‘underestimated’ the dangers posed by his proven contact with the Salvo cousins and Mafia boss, Stefano Bontade, before 1980.
The Salvos were the main contact to 'adjust' trials against mafiosi. "The 'normal circuit' for all problems that needed attention in Rome was: Ignazio Salvo, the Honourable Salvo Lima, and Senator Giulio Andreotti," according to the pentito
Gaspare Mutolo
. Andreotti always denied having known the Salvos. However, old news photographs are showing Andreotti with Nino Salvo at a Christian Democratic rally held in the Salvos' Zagarella Hotel complex in 1979.
Tommaso Buscetta
who revealed the affiliation of the Salvos to Cosa Nostra to judge Giovanni Falcone
. However, in a confidential police report from 1972 about the Mafia in Trapani, the brothers Ignazio Salvo (born in 1887 and the father of Antonino Salvo) and Luigi Salvo (born in 1888 and the father of Ignazio Salvo) were indicated as the Mafia bosses of that area. The membership of Cosa Nostra was passed on to their sons.
Antonino and Ignazio Salvo were arrested on November 12, 1984, and later convicted of being Mafia members. It came out at their trial that when Lima was in Sicily he was chauffeured around in the Salvos' bulletproof car. Later pentiti explained even more about the Salvos' role as intermediaries between Cosa Nostra and politicians.
According to pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia
, his boss Stefano Bontade
told him that affiliation of the Salvo cousins should be kept confidential because of their position in business and politics. Contact with the Salvos were maintained by a restricted group of Mafia bosses, such as Gaetano Badalamenti
, Salvatore Inzerillo
and Bontade. After the murder of Bontade and the defeat of the moderate wing of Cosa Nostra in the Mafia war waged by the Corleonesi in the beginning of the 1980s the relation with the Salvos was taken over by Salvatore Riina
. Although the Salvos were part of the losing side, their political connections were too important to have them killed.
The Salvos were also involved in the murder of the muckraking journalist Mino Pecorelli on March 20, 1979. Buscetta testified that Gaetano Badalamenti told him it was the Salvo cousins who commissioned the murder with the Mafia as a favour to Andreotti. Andreotti feared Pecorelli was about to publish information that could have destroyed his political career.
According to pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia
, the Salvos were present at a meeting with Giulio Andreotti
and Mafia boss Stefano Bontade
to try to prevent the Mafia from killing Piersanti Mattarella
, the president of the autonomous region of Sicily
. Mattarella wanted to clean up the government's public contracts racket that benefited Cosa Nostra. Mattarella was killed on January 6, 1980.
in Switzerland. Ignazio Salvo was sentenced to seven years in prison for criminal conspiracy on December 16, 1987, at the Maxi Trial
against the Mafia. He was described as a key mediator between the Mafia and Sicily's political and business elite.
On September 17, 1992, the Mafia murdered Ignazio Salvo at Santa Flavia
. He was a victim in a series of murders staged by the Mafia in retaliation for the confirmation of the sentence of the Maxi Trial
by the Italian Supreme Court in January 1992. The sentence upheld the Buscetta theorem that Cosa Nostra was a single hierarchical organisation ruled by a commission and that its leaders could be held responsible for criminal acts that were committed to benefit the organisation.
The Salvos' ally Salvo Lima had been killed in March, while their adversaries, the judges Giovanni Falcone
and Paolo Borsellino
had been killed in May and July 1992. Lima and the Salvos had failed to block the confirmation of the sentence and had to die as a message to Giulio Andreotti
to act on Cosa Nostra’s behalf. However, Andreotti by then was unable and unwilling to do anything.
In 1993, when prosecutors in Palermo indicted Andreotti, the police searched the archives of photojournalist Letizia Battaglia
and found two 1979 photographs of Andreotti with Nino Salvo, he had denied knowing. Aside from the accounts of turncoats, these pictures were the only physical evidence of this powerful politician's connections to the Sicilian Mafia. Battaglia herself had forgotten having taken the photograph. Its potential significance was apparent only 15 years after it was taken.
The Salvos did not traffic in drugs, did not kill anyone and did not take part in the "ordinary" Mafia activities. They were however a central part of the far-reaching network of economic and political interests that dominated Sicily through decades and in which Cosa Nostra played an important role.
Salemi
Salemi is a town and comune in South-Western Sicily, Italy, administratively part of the province of Trapani. It is located in the Belice Valley.-History:...
in the province of Trapani
Province of Trapani
Trapani is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Trapani.It has an area of 2,460 km², and a total population of 425,121...
. They had strong political connections with the Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana), in particular with the former mayor of Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, Salvo Lima, and Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
. At the Maxi Trial
Maxi Trial
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
against the Mafia in the mid 1980s, they were convicted of being Mafia members.
Salvo Lima arranged an unusually lucrative concession to collect taxes in Sicily for the Salvo cousins island (tax collection was contracted out by the government), in exchange for their loyalty to Lima and the Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
faction of the DC. The Salvos were allowed 10 percent of the take – three times as much as the national average of 3.3 percent. Subsequently, the Salvos expanded their economic activity to many other areas such agribusiness (lavishly subsidised by the European Union and Italian government) and tourism. They owned the Zagarella Hotel complex in Santa Flavia
Santa Flavia
Santa Flavia is a town in the province of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy.-Overview:The town is situated between the Gulf of Palermo and the town and hot springs known as Termini Imerese, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, 15 km east of Palermo...
, near Palermo.
Rise to power
In 1958, the Salvo cousins as well as the old Mafia families of GrecoGreco Mafia family
The Greco Mafia family is a historic and one of the most influential Mafia clans in Sicily, going back to the late 19th century. The extended family ruled both in Ciaculli and Croceverde Giardini, two south-eastern outskirts of Palermo in the citrus growing area. Members of the family were...
and Bontade
Francesco Paolo Bontade
Francesco Paolo Bontade , also known as Don Paolino Bonta, was a legendary and powerful member of the Sicilan Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He hailed from Villagrazia, a rural village before it was absorbed into the city of Palermo in the 1960s...
backed the regional Sicilian government of Silvio Milazzo
Silvio Milazzo
Silvio Milazzo was an Italian Christian Democrat politician and the President of the Regional Government of Sicily from 1958-1960.-Sicilian deputy:...
, an atypical coalition government that was supported by Communists
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
, Monarchists
Monarchist National Party
The Monarchist National Party was a political party in Italy founded in 1946, uniting conservatives, liberal conservatives, conservative liberals and nationalists...
, Neo-Fascists
Italian Social Movement
The Italian Social Movement , and later the Italian Social Movement–National Right , was a neo-fascist and post-fascist political party in Italy. Formed in 1946 by supporters of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the party became the fourth largest party in Italy by the early 1960s...
and dissident Christian Democrats. The government was formed in protest against infringement on Sicilian autonomy and threat to Sicilian patronage by the DC party headquarters in Rome. During that time they acquired the private concession for collecting taxes in Sicily with extremely favourable conditions. To consolidate the privilege, the Salvos unscrupulously withdrew their support for Milazzo to ally themselves with the mainstream Christian Democrats which tried to regain control of the region to maintain their cliental power base.
From then until the mid-1980s the Salvos were among the most powerful businessmen in the economic, political and social life of Sicily – until they were prosecuted by Palermo’s Antimafia pool that included Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
and Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
. They controlled the Christian Democratic party branch in the Province of Trapani
Province of Trapani
Trapani is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Trapani.It has an area of 2,460 km², and a total population of 425,121...
that guaranteed them great influence over the regional decision making of the DC. Mafia boss Francesco Paolo Bontade
Francesco Paolo Bontade
Francesco Paolo Bontade , also known as Don Paolino Bonta, was a legendary and powerful member of the Sicilan Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He hailed from Villagrazia, a rural village before it was absorbed into the city of Palermo in the 1960s...
and later his son Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
sustained a close relationship with the Salvo cousins, which allowed them access to influential regional and even politicians.
Intermediaries between Mafia and politicians
The Salvo cousins acted as the intermediaries between the Mafia and its political counterparts. Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, ruled in October 2004 that until the beginning of the 1980s former Prime Minister Giulio AndreottiGiulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
had "friendly and even direct ties" with top men in the so-called moderate wing of Cosa Nostra, Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Don Tano Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s...
and Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
, favoured by the connection between them and Salvo Lima through the Salvos. The judges considered that Andreotti had ‘underestimated’ the dangers posed by his proven contact with the Salvo cousins and Mafia boss, Stefano Bontade, before 1980.
The Salvos were the main contact to 'adjust' trials against mafiosi. "The 'normal circuit' for all problems that needed attention in Rome was: Ignazio Salvo, the Honourable Salvo Lima, and Senator Giulio Andreotti," according to the pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
Gaspare Mutolo
Gaspare Mutolo
Gaspare Mutolo is a Sicilian mafioso, also known as "Asparino". In 1992 he became a pentito . He was the first mafioso who spoke about the connections between Cosa Nostra and Italian politicians...
. Andreotti always denied having known the Salvos. However, old news photographs are showing Andreotti with Nino Salvo at a Christian Democratic rally held in the Salvos' Zagarella Hotel complex in 1979.
Mafia affiliation
It was the pentitoPentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...
who revealed the affiliation of the Salvos to Cosa Nostra to judge Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
. However, in a confidential police report from 1972 about the Mafia in Trapani, the brothers Ignazio Salvo (born in 1887 and the father of Antonino Salvo) and Luigi Salvo (born in 1888 and the father of Ignazio Salvo) were indicated as the Mafia bosses of that area. The membership of Cosa Nostra was passed on to their sons.
Antonino and Ignazio Salvo were arrested on November 12, 1984, and later convicted of being Mafia members. It came out at their trial that when Lima was in Sicily he was chauffeured around in the Salvos' bulletproof car. Later pentiti explained even more about the Salvos' role as intermediaries between Cosa Nostra and politicians.
According to pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia
Francesco Marino Mannoia
Francesco Marino Mannoia is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who became a pentito in 1989. His nickname was Mozzarella. He is considered to be one of the most reliable government witnesses against the Mafia...
, his boss Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
told him that affiliation of the Salvo cousins should be kept confidential because of their position in business and politics. Contact with the Salvos were maintained by a restricted group of Mafia bosses, such as Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Don Tano Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s...
, Salvatore Inzerillo
Salvatore Inzerillo
Salvatore Inzerillo was an Italian criminal, a member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio . He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family...
and Bontade. After the murder of Bontade and the defeat of the moderate wing of Cosa Nostra in the Mafia war waged by the Corleonesi in the beginning of the 1980s the relation with the Salvos was taken over by Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
. Although the Salvos were part of the losing side, their political connections were too important to have them killed.
The Salvos were also involved in the murder of the muckraking journalist Mino Pecorelli on March 20, 1979. Buscetta testified that Gaetano Badalamenti told him it was the Salvo cousins who commissioned the murder with the Mafia as a favour to Andreotti. Andreotti feared Pecorelli was about to publish information that could have destroyed his political career.
According to pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia
Francesco Marino Mannoia
Francesco Marino Mannoia is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who became a pentito in 1989. His nickname was Mozzarella. He is considered to be one of the most reliable government witnesses against the Mafia...
, the Salvos were present at a meeting with Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
and Mafia boss Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
to try to prevent the Mafia from killing Piersanti Mattarella
Piersanti Mattarella
Piersanti Mattarella was an Italian politician. He was assassinated by the Mafia while he held the position of President of the Regional Government of Sicily.-Background and early career:...
, the president of the autonomous region of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. Mattarella wanted to clean up the government's public contracts racket that benefited Cosa Nostra. Mattarella was killed on January 6, 1980.
Decline
Antonino Salvo died of cancer on January 19, 1986, in a clinic in BellinzonaBellinzona
Bellinzona is the administrative capital of the canton Ticino in Switzerland. The city is famous for its three castles that have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2000....
in Switzerland. Ignazio Salvo was sentenced to seven years in prison for criminal conspiracy on December 16, 1987, at the Maxi Trial
Maxi Trial
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
against the Mafia. He was described as a key mediator between the Mafia and Sicily's political and business elite.
On September 17, 1992, the Mafia murdered Ignazio Salvo at Santa Flavia
Santa Flavia
Santa Flavia is a town in the province of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy.-Overview:The town is situated between the Gulf of Palermo and the town and hot springs known as Termini Imerese, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, 15 km east of Palermo...
. He was a victim in a series of murders staged by the Mafia in retaliation for the confirmation of the sentence of the Maxi Trial
Maxi Trial
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
by the Italian Supreme Court in January 1992. The sentence upheld the Buscetta theorem that Cosa Nostra was a single hierarchical organisation ruled by a commission and that its leaders could be held responsible for criminal acts that were committed to benefit the organisation.
The Salvos' ally Salvo Lima had been killed in March, while their adversaries, the judges Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
and Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
had been killed in May and July 1992. Lima and the Salvos had failed to block the confirmation of the sentence and had to die as a message to Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
to act on Cosa Nostra’s behalf. However, Andreotti by then was unable and unwilling to do anything.
In 1993, when prosecutors in Palermo indicted Andreotti, the police searched the archives of photojournalist Letizia Battaglia
Letizia Battaglia
Letizia Battaglia is a Sicilian photographer and photojournalist. Although her photos document a wide spectrum of Sicilian life, she is best known for her work on the Mafia.-Biography:...
and found two 1979 photographs of Andreotti with Nino Salvo, he had denied knowing. Aside from the accounts of turncoats, these pictures were the only physical evidence of this powerful politician's connections to the Sicilian Mafia. Battaglia herself had forgotten having taken the photograph. Its potential significance was apparent only 15 years after it was taken.
The Salvos did not traffic in drugs, did not kill anyone and did not take part in the "ordinary" Mafia activities. They were however a central part of the far-reaching network of economic and political interests that dominated Sicily through decades and in which Cosa Nostra played an important role.
External links
- All the Prime Minister’s men by Alexander Stille, The Independent on Sunday, September 24, 1995 (article on Andreotti, Lima and other political figures)
- Andreotti escapes conviction, BBC News, 25 July 2003