Palermo, 16 August (Adnkronos) – “Happy Ferragosto to all of you from: Via Scorsone 34, 90034 Corleone, Italy”. Mirrored sunglasses, a sports cap and a sly smile. Thus, Salvo Riina, the youngest son of the mafia boss Totò Riina, launched the challenge to the State on the day of Ferragosto with a post on social media. Via Scorsone is the street in Corleone (Palermo) where the Riina family has lived for many years, but in 2018 the then extraordinary commissioners of the Municipality decided to change the name of the street, dedicating it to the judge Cesare Terranova, one of the many victims of the bloodthirsty Corleonese bosses. Terranova was killed on 25 September 1979 together with his collaborator, Marshal Lenin Mancuso. The former Extraordinary Commission of the Municipality, composed of Giovanna Termini, Rosanna Mallemi and Maria Cacciola, who for more than two years led the Municipality dissolved for mafia decided to change the name of the street to give a signal of the presence of the State. Which, however, after six years, the son of the boss does not seem to want to accept. “The extraordinary commission, in the imminence of the conclusion of the assignment, wishes to inaugurate on Saturday 17 November at 10 the municipal nursery school of via Punzonotto. On the same day, the commission will proceed with the new naming, shared and authorized by the Prefect of Palermo Antonella De Miro, of via Scorsone in via Cesare Terranova, dedicating this street to the magistrate who was the first to be able to identify the strong criminal nature of the Corleone bosses”, was the announcement of the extraordinary commissioners.
Already a few months earlier, the prefectural commissioners had shown that they had no reverential fear for the Riinas. So much so that they sent municipal messengers to the home of Ninetta Bagarella, widow of the mafia boss, to notify an injunction to pay the waste tax. The wife of the boss of bosses, who died in November 2017, did not even open the front door. A few weeks later, threatened with seizure, she asked to pay in installments. After the State, it was the Church’s turn to send a message: the archbishop of Monreale, Monsignor Michele Pennisi, ordered that processions should no longer pass under the Riinas’ home.
Salvo Riina, the son of the boss of bosses who bears the same name as his father, had returned to Corleone, the town of just over 10,000 inhabitants in the province of Palermo known for being the birthplace of the Cosa Nostra boss, in the spring of 2023. The third son of Totò Riina, 47, served a sentence of 8 years and 10 months for mafia association, money laundering and extortion and was admitted to the social services probation regime. After his release from prison he was between Veneto and Abruzzo; he was admitted to the social services probation regime, and followed a social reintegration program with the Association of Families Against Drugs, finishing his studies and graduating.
Salvo Riina had been missing from Corleone since his father’s death in 2017. On that occasion he had obtained the judge’s authorization to return to his hometown to be godfather to the son of his youngest sister. In the meantime he also wrote a book: ‘Riina family life’, also translated into English, in which he recounts his life and that of his family.
Among the anecdotes told, the one about the Capaci massacre stands out: “The TV was on Rai1, and the special news had already been going on for an hour. We didn’t ask any questions, but simply looked at the screen. Giovanni Falcone’s face was shown every minute, alternating with the revolting images of a highway split in two… A smoking crater, full of wreckage and policemen busy with searches… My father Totò was at home too. He was sitting in his armchair in front of the TV. He was silent too. He didn’t say a word, but he wasn’t agitated or particularly intrigued by those images. A few wrinkles on his face, he was frowning slightly, he was listening and thinking about something else”. It was Riina himself who had decided that massacre, to eliminate the magistrate who had brought Cosa Nostra to the bar to the point of sentencing Riina and his associates to life in prison. (by Elvira Terranova)
