Cesare Terranova

Cesare Terranova (August 15, 1921 - September 25, 1979) was a magistrate from Sicily notable for his anti-Mafia stance.

Career

In the early 1960s he helped bring numerous Mafiosi to trial and subsequent imprisonment, and at the end of that decade he was a key figure in the Trial of the 114 which saw many prominant Mafiosi on trial for their role in the Mafia War in the early 1960s that ended with the Ciaculli massacre.

He made little attempt to hide the fact that his ambition was to bring Luciano Leggio, the boss of the Corleone Mafia Family - known as the Corleonisi - to justice.

In 1969 Terranova attempted to prosecute over sixty Corleonisi, including Leggio, but the trial resulted in acquittals for all the defendants. Terranova appealed successfully against the verdict and had Leggio tried in absentia in 1970 for the murder of Michele Navarra. This time Leggio was found guilty, although it was not until 1974 that he was finally captured and taken into custody.

He also lead an investigation into the prominant Sicilian politician Salvatore Lima and concluded that Lima was in league with a number of Mafiosi, including Angelo La Barbera. However, nothing came of his enquiries or allegations.

In 1969 he also indicted Salvatore Riina - Leggio's eventual successor - to stand trial once again on murder charges he had recently been acquitted of, but Riina was to remain a fugitive until 1993.

Death

On September 25, 1979, then aged fifty-eight, Terranova was shot to death in his car along with a policeman, Lenin Mancuso, who acted as a bodyguard.

Leggio was charged with ordering Terranova's murder at the Maxi Trial but acquitted due to insufficient evidence.

Quote

"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." [1]:

References

• Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic (1995) Alexander Stille, Vintage ISBN 0-09-959491-9
• The Mafia (1990) Claire Sterling, Harper Collins, ISBN 0007749201

External links

• Italian language biography
• Chronology of the Mafia; includes entry for Terranova's assassination
• Crime Scene photograph of Terranova's murder - Warning: Graphic Image