.::GIUGNO 2009::.

Letizia Battaglia's portrait has become as memorable as the assassination itself. Indeed the Palermo native has won acclaim for her extensive mafiosa portfolio. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Battaglia's purpose was to disclose the murderous doings of Sicilian mobsters. "Suddenly," the photo-journalist once said of her 600,000 negatives, "I had an archive of blood." Having clicked away at so many local crime bosses as part of her coverage for the left-wing newspaper L'Ora, it was fitting that she arrived on the scene faster than a flash on September 25, 1979. Her candid photo, an example of pure reportage, has been taken from the viewpoint of a pedestrian or a policeman. What Letizia Battaglia tried to do with her camera was not unlike what Judge Terranova tried to do in his courtroom, which is why he was silenced thirty years ago. Born in Palermo, Sicily, Cesare Terranova [August 15, 1921 – September 25, 1979] was a politician and a magistrate known for his anti-mafia stance. From 1958 until 1971, Terranova was an examining magistrate at the Palermo prosecuting office. Reportedly, Terranova was one of the first to seriously investigate the Mafia and the financial operations of the Cosa Nostra. Three decades ago, when he was executed by hired hitmen, this was a grim turning point in Italian history — the first time the Mafia had dared to murder a judge. Around 8:30 AM, Giovanna Terranova had just kissed her husband goodbye and opened the morning paper. Then her world shattered. Gunfire erupted in the street directly below their apartment. "My heart went numb with fear," Mrs. Terranova recalled. "I ran downstairs but people pushed me back. They wouldn't let me see." Then fifty-eight years old, Cesare Terranova was fatally shot in his car along with his driver, policeman Lenin Mancuso [1922 – 1979], who doubled as his bodyguard. Here was a real mafia saga minus the Hollywood tinsel or white-washing. Unlike many of the fans of Francis Ford Coppola's gauzy, gold-dusted motion picture "The Godfather" [1972], cushioned by the sway of Nino Rota's iconic score, Cesare Terranova never saw anything grand nor romantic in the guild halls of gangland. On the contrary, he often explained: "The mafia is oppression, arrogance, greed, self-enrichment, power and hegemony above and against all others. It is not an abstract concept, or a state of mind, or a literary term.... It is a criminal organization regulated by unwritten but iron and inexorable rules.... The myth of a courageous and generous 'man of honor' must be destroyed, because a mafioso is just the opposite." Expanding upon those remarks, he added: "It is necessary to dismantle the myth of the mafioso as a brave and generous “man of honor” since the mafioso is characterized by a totally opposite character…. The mafioso shoots to the shoulder, by treachery, when he is secure to have the total control upon the victim.… He is ready to any compromise, to any renunciation, and to the worst mean actions in order to save himself in a dangerous situation…. The consciousness that nobody will denounce him, and that hidden and influential forces will rush to his help, gives the mafioso arrogance and boldness, at least until the right and severe application of the law will reach him." And the judge did more than just talk. During the 1960s, Terranova worked hard to bring several key Mafia figures to trial and imprisonment. Many Italians might recall that Justice Terranova was a key figure in the Trial of the 114, which placed many prominent gangsters on trial for their brutality in the First Mafia War during the early 1960s. There had been a lot of internal mob warfare that climaxed with the Ciaculli massacre on June 30, 1963. Two years later, on May 31, 1965, Terranova ordered the prosecution of 114 mafiosi. Ultimately, however, Terranova felt his efforts were thwarted by the Court of Catanzaro. On December 22, 1968, Christmas spirit may have reigned in the chambers during the sentencing phase of the Trial of the 114. All but 10 of the 114 defendants were acquitted; Angelo La Barbera got 22 years and Tommaso Buscetta 14 years for two “white deaths” [lupara bianca], a mafia-style rub-out that ends with a victim's corpse deliberately hidden.

The first to acknowledge the existence of a Sicilian Mafia Commission, Judge Terranova also forged investigations into the connections between the Mafia and politics. For example, he investigated the prominent Mayor of Palermo Salvatore Lima — — and concluded that Lima was in league with a number of mafiosi, including Angelo La Barbera, who regularly demanded “favors.” Despite his allegations about corruption and an indictment Terranova painstakingly assembled, nothing came of this. Behind years of legal maneuvers lay a master plan. Terranova was set on prosecuting the Corleonesi. His grand ambition was to bring Luciano Leggio, the boss of the Corleone mafia family [known as the Corleonesi] to justice. During 1965, Terranova ordered the prosecution of more than five dozen Corleonesi, including Luciano Leggio, for on-going murders in Corleone between 1958 and 1963. The most prominent victim had been Michele Navarra, crime king of Corleone. Unfortunately, on June 10, 1969, when the court in Bari was pronouncing the sentences, all 64 of the defendants were acquitted. The jury found Leggio guilty for merely one minor offense: stealing grain in 1948 — — for which he received a suspended sentence. The prosecution appealed the Catanzaro verdict that had acquitted Leggio and had him retried in absentia in 1970. This time around, the court found Leggio guilty. By then the mobster had been released from prison and it took four more years before Leggio was captured. By 1972 Terranova had become the secretary of the Antimafia Commission, an entity established in 1963 after the Ciaculli massacre. With his deputy Pio La Torre, Terranova wrote an extensive report of the Antimafia Commission that identified links between the mafia and prominent politicians, especially within the Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana). To his regret, though, the on-going documentation of the Antimafia Commission was essentially disregarded. Referring to his “thirteen wasted years” leading the Antimafia Commission, Terranova did not seek re-election again. Instead by June 1979, Cesare Terranova asked to be re-instated in the judiciary and was appointed as the chief examining magistrate at the Court in Palermo. Between his connections in Rome and his well-honed investigative skills, Terranova was shaping up to be an even more formidable mafia opponent. A few months later, Terranova was assassinated. Though Luciano Leggio was charged with ordering Terranova's murder, he was acquitted due to insufficient evidence. In 1992, the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were also killed by the mafia. On January 15, 2000, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Brusca, Bernardo Provenzano, Francesco Madonia, Pippo Calò, Nenè Geraci, and Michele Greco (members of the Sicilian Mafia Commission at the time of the 1979 murder) received life sentences for ordering Terranova’s death. By then Leggio had died and the two men who had carried out the hit with machine guns were themselves finished off by the mob. After the funeral, Cesare Terranova’s widow Giovanna became prominent in the Antimafia movement. She co-founded the first permanent civil anti-mafia organization, the Associazione donne siciliane per la lotta contro la Mafia (Association of Sicilian Women against the Mafia). The former socialite told a reporter: "I would have felt guilty if I had stayed at home. I would have thought that Cesare died for nothing. Yes, because being killed is terrible, but being forgotten is even worse. It is like dying twice." And what about the blood-spattered condominium between Rutelli and De Amicis Street, where Cesare and Giovanna were living when he was gunned down? The condo owners, preferring to forget, refused to allow a wall plaque that would commemorate the judge’s death. In Palermo, clearly the demands of real estate take precedent over the memorial to a hero.