Pio La Torre
Encyclopedia
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...
(Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI). He was killed by 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...
after he initiated a law that introduced a new crime in the Italian legal system, mafia conspiracy, and the possibility for the courts to seize and to confiscate the assets of the persons belonging to the mafia conspiracy.
Peasant leader
La Torre was born in Rocca Tagliata in the outskirts of PalermoPalermo
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...
as the son of peasants. He paid his studies as a construction worker. His political activities started as a leader of the peasant movement on 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,...
, first in the Confederterra, later on as the regional secretary of the Italian General Confederation of Labour
Italian General Confederation of Labour
-External links:**...
(Cgil) and finally within the Italian Communist Party
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...
(PCI).
In 1948 La Torre replaced peasant leader Placido Rizzotto
Placido Rizzotto
Placido Rizzotto was an Italian socialist peasant and trade union leader from Corleone, who was assassinated by Sicilian Mafia boss Luciano Leggio. Pieces of Rizzotto's mutilated body were discovered two years later at the bottom of a cliff with his limbs chained up, and a bullet hole in his head...
in Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
who was killed by 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...
of Luciano Liggio. In March 1950 the young student La Torre was arrested in Bisacquino
Bisacquino
Bisacquino is a town and comune in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy. It is located 82 kmfrom Agrigento and currently has approximately 5,215 inhabitants. The small town rises on an inner hill zone and is 663 metres above sea-level...
while leading the fight of peasants for land reform through occupations of large estates. He spent 18 months in jail in preventive custody before being released. In 1960 he became a member of the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
of the PCI, and in 1962 he was elected as the regional secretary of the party for Sicily.
In Parliament
Italian Chamber of Deputies
The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Italy. It has 630 seats, a plurality of which is controlled presently by liberal-conservative party People of Freedom. Twelve deputies represent Italian citizens outside of Italy. Deputies meet in the Palazzo Montecitorio. A...
(Italian: Camera dei Deputati) for the district 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...
in May 1972. He was re-elected twice and remained a deputy until he was killed by 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...
on April 30, 1982. La Torre became a member of the Antimafia Commission
Antimafia Commission
The Italian Antimafia Commission is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate . The Antimafia Commission is a commission of inquiry into, initially, the “phenomenon of the Mafia”...
, formed in 1962 during the First Mafia War, which published its final report in 1976. La Torre, together with judge Cesare Terranova
Cesare Terranova
Cesare Terranova was a magistrate and politician from Sicily notable for his anti-Mafia stance. From 1958 until 1971 Terranova was an examining magistrate at the Palermo prosecuting office. He was one of the first to seriously investigate the Mafia and the financial operations of Cosa Nostra. He...
, wrote a minority report, which pointed to links between the Mafia and prominent politicians in particular of the Christian Democrat
Christian Democracy (Italy)
Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....
party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana).
On March 31, 1980, La Torre initiated a draft law that introduced a new crime in the Italian legal system, mafia conspiracy, and the possibility for the courts to seize and to confiscate the goods of the persons belonging to the mafia conspiracy.
With the inclusion of the mafia conspiracy in article 416 bis of the Italian Penal Code, a serious gap was filled. In spite of its obvious danger, mafia conspiracy had not been recognized by the Penal Code as a criminal phenomenon. As a result, many judges had not considered the Mafia a criminal association. The provisions contained in article 416 of the Penal Code concerning criminal association were suitable to cope with local and limited phenomena of associated delinquency, but not with organized crime.
Return to Sicily
In 1981 La Torre requested the party to be sent back to Sicily where he became the regional secretary of the PCI. He also became part of the popular movement against the deployment of Ground Launched Cruise MissilesCruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...
(GLCM) by the United States at Comiso
Comiso
Comiso is an Italian municipality in the Province of Ragusa in Sicily.-Geography:Comiso consists of three boroughs: Comiso, Pedalino, and Quaglio. It lies some 22 km west of Ragusa in the South of Sicily...
Air Base, just as the journalist Giuseppe Fava
Giuseppe Fava
Giuseppe Fava , also known as Pippo, was an Sicilian writer, investigative journalist, playwright and Antimafia activist who was killed by the Mafia. He was the founder of the I Siciliani monthly magazine...
. The missiles were stationed in June 1983, but were dismantled after the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is a 1987 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Signed in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8, 1987, it was ratified by the United States Senate on May 27, 1988 and...
(INF) was signed by the former Soviet Union and the United States on December 8, 1987. The last 16 GLCMs left the Comiso Air Base in 1991.
Killed by the Mafia
Corleonesi
The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca...
, which were engaged in a fierce internal war against rival Mafia factions (the so-called Second Mafia War
Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a conflict within the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place in the early 1980s. As with any criminal organization, the history of the Sicilian Mafia is replete with conflicts and power struggles, and the violence that results from them, but these are generally localised and...
) and against those representatives of the state that tried to seriously fight Cosa Nostra.
On April 30, 1982, La Torre and his driver Rosario Di Salvo were shot in a hail of bullets near the Communist Party's headquarters in Palermo. Their car was trapped in a one-way street blocked by the killers' car. Di Salvo returned the fire with a .38-caliber pistol before he was killed. The hit team was composed of Pino Greco, 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....
, Nino Madonia, Mario Prestifilippo
Mario Prestifilippo
Mario Prestifilippo was a member of the Sicilian Mafia.He was briefly the boss of the Ciaculli Mafia Family after Giuseppe Greco was murdered in 1985. He played a significant role in the Second Mafia War of the early 1980s orchestrated by Salvatore Riina...
and Salvatore Cucuzza. La Torre was sentenced to death by 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...
because of his endeavour against the Mafia.
The day after General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa
Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa
Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa was a general of the Italian carabinieri notable for campaigning against terrorism during the 1970s in Italy, and later assassinated by the Mafia in Palermo.-Biography:...
was appointed as prefect
Prefect
Prefect is a magisterial title of varying definition....
for 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...
to stop the violence of the Second Mafia War
Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a conflict within the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place in the early 1980s. As with any criminal organization, the history of the Sicilian Mafia is replete with conflicts and power struggles, and the violence that results from them, but these are generally localised and...
. La Torre’s law was approved only after Dalla Chiesa was murdered as well on September 3, 1982, on the orders of Mafia boss 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...
of the Corleonesi. That compelled Parliament to adopt the law La Torre initiated in a rush together with other emergency measures against the Mafia.
Antimafia law
The so called Rognoni-La Torre Law (named after the backers of two proposals that were later unified, the Christian Democrat Minister Virginio RognoniVirginio Rognoni
Virginio Rognoni is an Italian politician, who was a prominent member of Christian Democracy. He was several times Interior Minister, Minister of Defense and Minister of Justice...
and Pio La Torre) or "Antimafia law", includes two fundamental innovations: The introduction in the legal system of a new crime, the mafia conspiracy; The possibility for the courts to seize and to confiscate the goods of the persons belonging to the mafia conspiracy, as well as of relatives, partners and cohabitants who in the past five years played a "front man" role or cover-up role for the mafia.
Article 416 of the Italian Penal Code that has its origins in the fascist period (1930), defined simple organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
on the basis of the presence of three elements: the associative bond, the organized structure, the criminal program. Organized crime of the mafia type presents additional specific characteristics: the associative bond has such an intimidating capacity to cause subjection and omertà
Omertà
Omertà is a popular attitude and code of honour and a common definition is the "code of silence". It is common in areas of southern Italy, such as Sicily, Apulia, Calabria, and Campania, where criminal organizations defined as Mafia such as the Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita, and...
. It is at such a level that it may be considered a system, an absolute rule of obedience and a law of silence that first of all demands, from the entire population, the refusal to collaborate with law enforcement. An actual submission to the power of the mafia.
According to article 416 bis, introduced by the new law:
- The organization is of the mafia type when its components use intimidation, subjection and, consequentially, silence (omertà), to commit crimes, directly or indirectly acquire the management or the control of businesses, concessions, authorizations, public contracts and public services to obtain either unjust profits or advantages for themselves or others.
The new Law was used by 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...
to prosecute the Sicilian Mafia in 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...
that started in 1986.
The trial of the killers
The murder of La Torre and Di Salvo were originally claimed by the left wing Gruppi proletari organizzati. In 1991, after nine years of investigations the Court of Palermo send nine bosses of the Sicilian Mafia CommissionSicilian 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...
to trial. Subsequently, one of the members of the hit team, Salvatore Cucuzza turned state witness (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...
). On January 12, 2007, the remaining killers of La Torre and the remaining principals of the Commission, Salvatore "Totò" Riina, 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...
, Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
, Bernardo Brusca and Nenè Geraci
Nenè Geraci
Antonio Geraci , better known as Nenè or il vecchio , is the historical boss of the Mafia in Partinico, in the province of Palermo. Geraci sat on the Sicilian Mafia Commission since the mid 1970s and belonged to the hard line faction allied with the Corleonesi of Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano...
were finally sentenced. The civilian airport of Comiso was named after Pio La Torre.