The journalist on the Caltanissetta investigation: “No prudence from prosecutors, but on the eve of the massacres my name was on the list of those sentenced to death with Borsellino and Falcone”
Michele Santoro writes to Sergio Mattarella regarding the investigation by the Caltanissetta prosecutor’s office on the collaborator of justice Maurizio Avola, accused of aggravated slander. “Dear President, I hope you do not find this letter of mine inappropriate; I am forced to address you to denounce a serious wound inflicted not only on my person and on that of others in contact with me but on fundamental constitutional principles such as the freedom of opinion, of movement and the right to defense of each citizen. This occurs in the general indifference of the institutions of control, of the major sources of information, of the Federation of the Press and of the Order of Journalists and, consequently, of public opinion”. .
The reporter does reference to the investigation into the utterances of the collaborator Maurizio Avola, which were then included in Santoro’s book “Nient’altro che la Truth”. Avola’s stories about the massacre of judge Paolo Borsellino and the agents of the escort Agostino Catalano, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, Walter Eddie Cosina and Claudio Traina have not found any objective confirmation from the investigative investigations both of a documentary and historical nature.
“On 9 July I had to learn from the newspaper ‘La Sicilia’ the news of the filing by the Public Prosecutors of Caltanissetta of the request for filing against the collaborator of justice Maurizio Avola, of Aldo Ercolano, deputy of Nitto Santapaola at the head of the clan from Catania belonging to Cosa Nostra, and other mafiosi of the same clan level, registered for the crime of massacre for the 1992 massacres of Capaci and via d’Amelio – writes Santoro – The investigation had been opened following the sensational declarations of Avola, protagonist of the book I wrote with Guido Ruotolo ‘Nient’altro che la Verità ’, with which the collaborator of justice told his life and for the first time described the composition of the commando and the exact methods of carrying out the attack in which Borsellino and his escort lost their lives.According to the Catania newspaper, not only did the prosecutors consider the unpublished narration of the massacre without reliable evidence but they had acquired incontrovertible proof of its falsehood. Therefore the Public Prosecutor’s Office, considering Avola’s bad faith demonstrated, hypothesized the crime of slander against the mafiosi of the Santapaola group”.
“The news of the request for dismissal was at that time covered by secrecy and was circulated without the interested parties, and above all Maurizio Avola’s defender, receiving formal notice – continues the journalist – Even before ‘Nothing but the truth’ was distributed in bookstores, the Public Prosecutor’s Office itself, in May 2021, with investigations still open, in a wholly informal manner and certainly not compliant with codified principles, had issued a statement which went so far as to hypothesize a misdirection to which the collaborator of justice had participated with the complicity of the journalists and the defense attorney.The fact is that a boss of the first magnitude like Aldo Ercolano, sentenced to life imprisonment, thought well to use the assessments of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to report me and Maurizio Avola for slander , a dispute that the prosecutors have incredibly extended to his defender, the lawyer Ugo Colonna”.
“I recall only in passing, having never obtained or requested escorts or protective services, that my name, on the eve of the massacres, was on the list of those sentenced to death by Cosa Nostra which also included Borsellino and Falcone. But this has not led to any prudence on the part of these ‘anti-mafia standard bearers’. Furthermore, with the filing request, news of contributions to ongoing investigations and recent images of Maurizio Avola were casually included in the judicial file available to the parties, as well as detailed information on the place and the city where he currently works and lives without any protection – Michele Santoro complains – The first reason I decided to write to you is that our safety has been jeopardized. If something were to happen to each of us, to our family members and, in particular, to a collaborator of justice who proved to be essential in dismantling the Santapaola-Ercolano ‘family’, everyone should know who is responsible for it and what are the institutions that have moved to prevent this from happening”.
Source-www.adnkronos.com