29 years have passed since one of the biggest wounds in Italian republican history, probably never fully healed: it was May 23 when the anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, also a magistrate, and the agents of the escort Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo and Antonio Montinaro lost their lives on a stretch of the A29 motorway, which connects the Punta Raisi airport to the city of Palermo, at of Isola delle Femmine, victims of a mafia-type attack known as the "massacre of Capaci", from the name of the motorway junction closest to the place of the tragedy. There were also 23 injured, including agents Paolo Capuzza, Angelo Corbo, Gaspare Cervello and the judicial chauffeur Giuseppe Costanza.
The victims were traveling in various cars when at 17.57 a bomb hidden under the road and made up of 500 kg of TNT exploded. It was Cosa Nostra who planned and carried out the attack, deciding it during some meetings of the regional and provincial "Commissions" of Cosa Nostra, which took place between September-December 1991, and presided over by boss Salvatore Riina, while the coordinator of the operation was Giovanni Brusca. The trial of the mafia leaders began in 1995 and in 1997 the Court of Assizes of Caltanissetta, presided over by judge Carmelo Zuccaro, sentenced Salvatore Riina to life imprisonment in the first instance, Pietro Aglieri, Bernardo Brusca, Leoluca Bagarella, Raffaele and Domenico Ganci, Giovanni Battaglia, Salvatore Biondino, Salvatore Biondo, Giuseppe Calò, Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano, Michelangelo La Barbera, Salvatore and Giuseppe Montalto, Matteo Motisi, Pietro Rampulla, Bernardo Provenzano, Benedetto Spera, Antonino Troia, Benedetto Santapaola and Giuseppe Madonia while Mariano Agate, Giuseppe Lucchese, Salvatore Sbeglia, Giusto Sciarrabba, Salvatore Buscemi, Giuseppe Farinella, Antonino Giuffrè, Francesco Madonia and Giuseppe Agrigento were acquitted (who however was convicted of possession of explosive material ); collaborators Santino Di Matteo, Gioacchino La Barbera, Giovanni Brusca, Salvatore Cancemi, Giovan Battista Ferrante, Antonino Galliano and Calogero Ganci were instead sentenced to between fifteen and twenty-one years in prison.
In April 2000, the Caltanissetta Court of Assizes of Appeal confirmed all the convictions and acquittals of the first instance but also sentenced Salvatore Buscemi, Francesco Madonia, Antonino Giuffrè, Mariano Agate and Giuseppe Farinella to life imprisonment. Finally, in May 2002 the Court of Cassation annulled the sentences of Pietro Aglieri, Salvatore Buscemi, Giuseppe Calò, Giuseppe Farinella, Antonino Giuffrè, Francesco Madonia, Giuseppe Madonia, Giuseppe and Salvatore Montalto, with referral to the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Catania. Matteo Motisi and Benedetto Spera. The life sentence remained for the boss Totò Riina, who later died in Parma prison on November 17, 2017.
