Gaspare Pisciotta was a companion and close friend of the Sicilian

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,...

 bandit Salvatore Giuliano

Salvatore Giuliano

Salvatore Giuliano was a Sicilian peasant. It has been suggested that the subjugated social status of his class led him to become a bandit and separatist. He was mythologised during his life and after his death...

, and considered to be the co-leader of his outlaw

Outlaw

In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...

 band.

Origins

Gaspare Pisciotta, nicknamed Aspanu by friends, was born in Montelepre

Montelepre

Montelepre is a town and comune in the province of Palermo, Sicily, Italy. It is known for having been the native city of Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano.-Main sights:*The Church of Maria Santissima del Rosario...

 in Western 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,...

 in 1924. Contrary to a widely-held belief, he and Giuliano were not cousins, but knew each other as children and became friends as young men. While Giuliano remained in Montelepre during the war, Pisciotta joined the army and was captured fighting against the Germans. He was released in 1945 and returned to Sicily, joining Giuliano’s separatist campaign and thus being one of the founding members of his band.

Trial

Shortly after Giuliano's death on July 5, 1950, Pisciotta was captured and brought to trial for his crimes as a bandit. During the trial for the Portella della Ginestra massacre

Portella della Ginestra massacre

The Portella della Ginestra massacre was one of the more violent acts of in the history of modern Italian politics, when 11 people were killed and 33 wounded during May Day celebrations in Sicily on May 1, 1947, in the municipality of Piana degli Albanesi...

 he made the startling revelation that it had been he who assassinated Giuliano in his sleep, a statement which contradicted the police account that Giuliano had been shot by Carabinieri

Carabinieri

The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...

 captain Antonio Perenze in a gunfight in Castelvetrano

Castelvetrano

Castelvetrano is a town and comune in the province of Trapani, Sicily, Italy. The archeological site of Selinunte is located within the territory of the comune. It was the birthplace of Giovanni Gentile, the key philosopher of the Fascist movement in Italy.The town is predominantly a farming town,...

. He claimed to have killed Giuliano on the instruction of Mario Scelba

Mario Scelba

Mario Scelba was an Italian Christian Democratic politician who served as the 34th Prime Minister of Italy from February 1954 to July 1955...

, then Minister of the Interior, and to have had an arrangement with Colonel Ugo Luca, the head of the anti-bandit force in Sicily, to collaborate on the condition that he should not be charged and that Luca would intervene in his favour if he were caught.

At the trial, Pisciotta said: "Those who have made promises to us are called Bernardo Mattarella

Bernardo Mattarella

Bernardo Mattarella was an Italian politician for the Christian Democrat party . He has been Minister of Italy several times...

, Prince Alliata, the monarchist MP Marchesano and also Signor Scelba

Mario Scelba

Mario Scelba was an Italian Christian Democratic politician who served as the 34th Prime Minister of Italy from February 1954 to July 1955...

, Minister for Home Affairs … it was Marchesano, Prince Alliata and Bernardo Mattarella who ordered the massacre of Portella di Ginestra. Before the massacre they met Giuliano…" However the MPs Mattarella, Alliata and Marchesano were declared innocent by the Court of Appeal of Palermo, at a trial which dealt with their alleged role in the event. During his trial Pisciotta could not account for Giuliano’s documents in which he named the high-ranking government officials and mafiosi

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 involved with Giuliano’s band.

Pisciotta was sentenced to life in imprisonment and forced labour; most of the other 70 bandits met the same fate. Others were at large, but one by one they all disappeared. When Pisciotta realized that he had been abandoned by all and was condemned, he declared that he was going to tell the whole truth, in particular who signed the letter which had been brought to Giuliano on April 27, 1947, which demanded the massacre at Portella delle Ginistra in exchange for liberty for us all and which Giuliano had destroyed immediately.

Giuliano's mother reportedly had suspected Pisciotta as a potential traitor before her son's death, although Giuliano had tried to convince her of his trust in his lieutenant in a letter: "...we respect each other as brothers' what he is I am, and what I am he is." If Gaspare Pisciotta’s testimony was true, Giuliano suspected nothing until the time of his death.

Imprisonment and death

In prison, Pisciotta made it clear that he believed his life was in danger. He was reported to have said "One of these days, they will kill me," and he refused to share a cell with anyone but his father, also serving a life sentence for involvement in Giuliano’s band. Gaspare even reportedly kept a tame sparrow to test his food for poison, and ate nothing but what his mother brought for him from home. However, on the morning of February 9, 1954, Gaspare took a vitamin preparation which he stirred into his coffee and drank. He almost immediately became violently ill, and despite being rushed to the prison infirmary, he was dead within forty minutes. The cause of death, as revealed by the autopsy, was the ingestion of 20 mg of strychnine

Strychnine

Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...

.

Both the government and the Mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 were suggested as being behind the murder of Pisciotta, but no-one was ever brought to trial. Gaspare's mother Rosalia wrote a letter to the press on March 18, 1954, denouncing the governmental corruption

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 and possible Mafia involvement in her son's death, stating: "Yes, it is true that my son Gaspare will never open his mouth again, and already many people think they are safe; but who knows – perhaps other things may speak." Gaspare Pisciotta had supposedly written an autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 in prison, to which his mother may have been referring, and which his brother Pietro tried to sell. However, this document went missing and its contents remain unknown.

Dramatisations

In Francesco Rosi

Francesco Rosi

Francesco Rosi is an Italian film director. He is the father of actress Carolina Rosi.-Biography:After studying Law, but hoping to study film, Rosi entered the industry as an assistant to Luchino Visconti on La Terra trema...

's 1961 film, Salvatore Giuliano

Salvatore Giuliano (film)

Salvatore Giuliano is a 1962 Italian film directed by Francesco Rosi. Shot in a neo-realist documentary, non-linear style, it follows the lives of those involved with the famous Sicilian bandit, Salvatore Giuliano...

, Pisciotta was played by Frank Wolff

Frank Wolff (actor)

Walter Frank Hermann Wolff was a versatile American actor whose prolific movie career began with roles in five 1958-61 Roger Corman productions and ended a decade later in Rome, after scores of appearances in European-made films, most of which were lensed in Italy.- Early life :A native of San...

. Mario Puzo

Mario Puzo

Mario Gianluigi Puzo was an American author and screenwriter, known for his novels about the Mafia, including The Godfather , which he later co-adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola...

's 1984 novel The Sicilian

The Sicilian

The Sicilian is a novel by Italian-American author Mario Puzo. Published in 1984 by Random House Publishing Group , it is based on Puzo's most famous work, The Godfather. It is regarded as The Godfathers literary sequel....

is a dramatized version of Giuliano and Pisciotta's story, set in the universe of The Godfather (novel)

The Godfather (novel)

The Godfather is a crime novel written by Italian American author Mario Puzo, originally published in 1969 by G. P. Putnam's Sons. It details the story of a fictitious Sicilian Mafia family based in New York City and headed by Don Vito Corleone, who became synonymous with the Italian Mafia...

. The book was made into a film in 1987, directed by Michael Cimino

Michael Cimino

Michael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...

, starring Christopher Lambert

Christopher Lambert

Christophe Guy Denis "Christopher" Lambert is an American-born French actor who has appeared in French, European and American productions. He is best known for his role as Connor MacLeod, or simply "The Highlander", from the movie and subsequent movie franchise series of the same name...

 as Giuliano, and John Turturro

John Turturro

John Michael Turturro is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing , Miller's Crossing , Barton Fink , Quiz Show , The Big Lebowski , O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Transformers film series...

 as Pisciotta. He is also a character in the opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 Salvatore Giuliano, written by the Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero

Lorenzo Ferrero

Lorenzo Ferrero is a contemporary Italian composer with a predilection for opera, a librettist, author, and book editor. He started composing at an early age and wrote over a hundred compositions thus far, including twelve operas, three ballets, and numerous orchestral, chamber music, solo...

in 1985.