Giuseppe Graviano
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
mafioso
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...
from the Brancaccio
Brancaccio
Brancaccio is a neighbourhood of Palermo, Sicily. It is a semi-traditional area of the working class. It was important in the history of the Cosa Nostra....
quarter in 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...
. He is currently serving several life sentences.
The brothers Giuseppe and Filippo Graviano became members of the Sicilian Mafia Commission
Sicilian Mafia Commission
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra...
for the Brancaccio
Brancaccio
Brancaccio is a neighbourhood of Palermo, Sicily. It is a semi-traditional area of the working class. It was important in the history of the Cosa Nostra....
-Ciaculli
Ciaculli
Ciaculli is an outlying suburb of Palermo, Sicily in Italy. It counts less than 5000 residents. Ciaculli is close to the suburb of Croceverde. Ciaculli has been important within the history of the Cosa Nostra. The best known Mafia family is the Greco Mafia clan...
mandamento, substituting Giuseppe Lucchese
Giuseppe Lucchese
Giuseppe Lucchese is a member of the Sicilian Mafia from the Brancaccio neighbourhood in Palermo. He was one of the favourite hitmen of the Corleonesi, headed by Totò Riina, during the Second Mafia War in 1981-83....
who was in prison. As such they were among the Mafia bosses held responsible for the murders of the Antimafia 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....
.
Mafia bomb attacks in 1993
After the arrest of Mafia boss Totò Riina in January 1993, the remaining bosses, among them Giuseppe Graviano, Matteo Messina DenaroMatteo Messina Denaro
Matteo Messina Denaro , also known as Diabolik, is a Sicilian mafioso. He got his nickname from the Italian comic book character of the same name. He is considered to be one of the new leaders of Cosa Nostra after the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on April 11, 2006...
, Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia. He murdered the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992 and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders but was unable to remember the exact number...
, Leoluca Bagarella
Leoluca Bagarella
Leoluca Bagarella is an Italian criminal and member of the Sicilian Mafia. He is from the town of Corleone and was a member of the Corleonesi.-Biography:...
, Antonino Gioè and Gioacchino La Barbera
Gioacchino La Barbera
Gioacchino La Barbera is a member of the Mafia who became a pentito. He was one of the key witnesses in the trial against the killers of Antimafia judge Giovanni Falcone....
came together a few times (often in the Santa Flavia area in Bagheria
Bagheria
Bagheria is a town and comune in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy.-Etymology:According to some sources, the name Bagheria originates from the Phoenician term Bayharia meaning "land that descends toward the sea." Other sources claim that it derives from the Arabic Bāb al-Gerib, or "windy...
, on an estate owned by the mafioso Leonardo Greco). They decided on a strategy to force the Italian state to retreat. That resulted in a series of bomb attacks in 1993 in the Via dei Georgofili in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, in Via Palestro in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
and in the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and Via San Teodoro in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, which left 10 people dead and 93 injured as well as damage to centres of cultural heritage such as the Uffizi
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
Gallery.
The Graviano brothers, including the eldest one Benedetto Graviano were seen as the organizers of the operation, in particular to select the men who would carry out the bombings. Giuseppe and Filippo Graviano each received a life sentence for the bombings.
Murder of Antimafia priest
Giuseppe and Filippo Graviano ordered the murder of the Antimafia priest Pino PuglisiPino Puglisi
Giuseppe 'Pino' Puglisi was a Roman Catholic priest in the rough Palermo neighbourhood of Brancaccio. He openly challenged the Mafia who controlled the neighbourhood, and was killed by them on his 56th birthday...
on September 15, 1993. Puglisi was the pastor of San Gaetano’s Parish in the rough Palermo neighborhood of Brancaccio, and spoke out against the Mafia. One of the hitmen who killed Puglisi, Salvatore Grigoli, later confessed and revealed the priest’s last words as his killers approached: "I've been expecting you."
Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano were arrested on January 27, 1994, and have been in prison since. They are convicted for the Mafia bombings in Florence and Rome in 1993 and ordering the killing of Pino Puglisi
Pino Puglisi
Giuseppe 'Pino' Puglisi was a Roman Catholic priest in the rough Palermo neighbourhood of Brancaccio. He openly challenged the Mafia who controlled the neighbourhood, and was killed by them on his 56th birthday...
. The two jailed brothers managed to impregnate their wives despite harsh regulations forbidding conjugal visits. Investigators realised the two men had fathered children while behind bars when their wives came to visit with babies. They believe that the two men used couriers to smuggle out their sperm.
Sister takes over
With the two brothers serving their sentences, control of the Graviano-clan passed to their sister, Nunzia Graviano, known as picciridda (the baby), reinvesting the family's financial assets and modernising its business. "She is the alter ego of her brothers in their territory and capable of managing a vast fortune," according to the prosecution. She may be the first woman to have acted as "regent" for a leading Mafia family. She reportedly followed the MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
stock market
Borsa Italiana
The Borsa Italiana S.p.A., based in Milan, is Italy's main stock exchange. It was privatised in 1997 and is a part of the London Stock Exchange Group plc since 2007. In 2005, the companies listed on the Borsa were worth US$890 billion...
on teletext and was an avid reader of the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore
Il Sole 24 Ore
Il Sole 24 Ore is an Italian national daily business newspaper owned by Confindustria, the Italian employers' federation.It was founded on 1965-11-09 as a merger between Il Sole, founded in 1865, and 24 Ore, founded in 1946. The headquarters are in Milan...
. Much of the Gravianos' wealth was invested in Italian blue-chip companies. She was also laundering some of the money abroad through a financial consultancy in Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
. Nunzia Graviano was arrested in July 1999 in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
(France).
Brancaccio command
The third brother Benedetto Graviano, who has served a five-year sentence for Mafia conspiracy, has been arrested in July 2004 for cocaine trafficking. He allegedly financed 18 kilograms of cocaine in a joint venture with a 'Ndrangheta clan. The cocaine was distributed among the jet set in Palermo. After his release for insufficient evidence, he was arrested again in February 2005. Benedetto Graviano had taken over the command in the Brancaccio area after the arrest of regent Giuseppe GuttadauroGiuseppe Guttadauro
Giuseppe Guttadauro is an Italian Mafia boss and a high profile surgeon from the Rocella neighbourhood in Palermo...
. The Mafia family of Santa Maria di Gesù had tried to take over the Brancaccio area, but Cosa Nostra’s boss Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...
decided to re-instate the Gravianos.
Giuseppe Graviano recently gained an academic degree in mathematics and his brother Filippo in economics.
Links with Berlusconi
According to 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...
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002....
the Graviano brothers were the intermediaries between Cosa Nostra and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
. Cosa Nostra decided to back Berlusconi's Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....
party from its foundation in 1993, in exchange for help in resolving the mafia's judicial problems. The mafia turned to Forza Italia when its traditional contacts in the discredited Christian Democrat party proved unable to protect its members from the rigours of the law.
According to Giuffrè, the Gravianos dealt directly with Berlusconi through the businessman Gianni Ienna, in September or October 1993. The alleged pact fell apart in 2002. Cosa Nostra had achieved nothing. There were no revisions of Mafia trials, no changes in the law of asset seizures and no changes in the harsh article 41-bis prison regime
Article 41-bis prison regime
In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations...
.
Assertions of Gaspare Spatuzza
One of Graviano's subordinates Gaspare SpatuzzaGaspare Spatuzza
Gaspare Spatuzza , is a Sicilian mafioso from the Brancaccio quarter in Palermo. He was a killer for the brothers Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano who headed the Mafia family of Brancaccio. After the arrest of the Gravianos in January 1994, he apparently succeeded them as the regent of the Mafia family...
, who turned pentito in 2008, has confirmed Giuffrè statements. Spatuzza testified that Graviano had told him in 1994 that future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
was bargaining with the Mafia, concerning a political-electoral agreement between Cosa Nostra and Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....
. Spatuzza said Graviano disclosed the information to him during a conversation in a bar Graviano owned in the upscale Via Veneto district of the Italian capital Rome. Berlusconi’s right-hand man Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi...
was the intermediary, according to Spatuzza. Dell'Utri has dismissed Spatuzza's allegations as "nonsense".
On December 4, 2009, Spatuzza repeated his accusations in court at the appeal hearing against Dell’Utri, sentenced to 9 years in 2004, for collusion with the Mafia. He testified: "Graviano told me the name of Berlusconi and said that thanks to him and the man from our home town [an apparent reference to Dell' Utri] we have the country in our hands." Dell'Utri told the court that neither he nor Berlusconi had Mafia connections. On December 11, 2009, Filippo Graviano denied the assertions of Spatuzza before the court of Palermo. He said that he never had met Dell'Utri directly or indirectly.