Raffaele Ganci

Raffaele Ganci (born January 4, 1932) is a member of the Mafia in Sicily from the Noce neighbourhood in Palermo. He was considered to be the right-hand man of Cosa Nostra boss Totò Riina and sat on the Sicilian Mafia Commission.[1]

Riina loyalist

Ganci was close to the Corleonesi of Riina and sided with them against other Palermitan Mafia families in the Second Mafia War. He is held responsible for the killings of Riina’s rivals Stefano Bontade and Salvatore Inzerillo in 1981.[2] He is sentenced to life for the killing of general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, the prefect of Palermo, appointed to crack down on Cosa Nostra in 1982.[3]

Riina appointed him on the Sicilian Mafia Commission in 1983 for the Noce mandamento.[4] As a member of the Commission he was responsible for ordering the killings of Antimafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.

Butcher shop

The family ran a popular butcher shop in the Via Lo Jacono. During the day Raffaele Ganci and his sons Calogero, Stefano and Domenico attended clients, while they went on killing sprees at night. The shop was located somewhere between the residences of Antimafia judges Rocco Chinnici in Via Pipitone Federico and the one of Giovanni Falcone. The wives of the judges regularly bought meat there, while the Ganci’s plotted the killing of their husbands.[5]

On June 10, 1993, Raffaele Ganci was arrested in Terrasini after five years on the run, together with his son Calogero Ganci and his son-in-law Francesco Paolo Anselmo.[2]

Son repents

His son Calogero Ganci, a pentito, became a witness for the prosecution, in 1996, and confessed to more than 100 murders. He also gave testimony about his father and his brothers and their involvement in Mafia killings such as the car-bomb that killed Antimafia judge Chinnici in 1983, police officers Ninni Cassarà, captain D'Aleo and the first pentito, Leonardo Vitale.[5][6]

Raffaele Ganci was involved in the decision to kill the Antimafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, and he and his sons participated in the execution of the bomb attacks. Ganci had doubts about the terrorist campaign in 1993, a series of bomb attacks in 1993 in the Via dei Georgofili in Florence, in Via Palestro in Milan and in the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and Via San Teodoro in Rome, which left 10 people dead and 93 injured as well as damage to centres of cultural heritage such as the Uffizi Gallery.[1] According to his son Calogero: "My father told me that Cosa Nostra was ruined by the massacres decided by Riina."[7]

Currently he is incarcerated serving several life sentences under the strict article 41-bis prison regime.

See also

References
  1. (in Italian) Ordinanza di custodia cautelare in carcere Archived 2008-12-07 at the Wayback Machine, Tribunale di Caltanissetta, Ufficio del giudice per le indagini preliminari, April 11, 1994
  2. (in Italian) L'amico di Riina, La Repubblica, June 11, 1993
  3. (in Italian) 25 anni fa fu ucciso il generale Dalla Chiesa, RaiNews24, September 3, 2007
  4. Paoli, Mafia Brotherhoods, p. 54
  5. (in Italian) Ganci: "Ho ucciso io Dalla Chiesa", Il Corriere della Sera, June 19, 1996
  6. A hit-man sings, but the show isn't over, The Independent (London), June 23, 1996
  7. (in Italian) Brusca: ecco dov'e' il mio "tesoro", Corriere della Sera, September 22, 1996

Books
  • Paoli, Letizia (2003). Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style, New York: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-515724-9 (Review)
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