Bruno Vespa interviews Riina's son and it's a storm on Rai. The company takes the side of the conductor and confirms the interview speaking of "preventive controversies" and specifying that "to offer a further point of view opposed to that offered by Riina's son Porta a Porta will also host tomorrow evening (tonight, ed ) an episode dedicated to the fight against crime and to those who have dedicated their lives to the fight against the mafia, even at the cost of their lives. Among others, the Minister of the Interior Angelino Alfano and the president of the anti-corruption Authority Raffaele Cantone will be guests”.
The president of the Rai Supervisory Commission, Roberto Fico, has proposed adopting an act of direction on guests in programs such as Porta a Porta. The issue will be placed on the agenda quickly. The director of Rai1, Andrea Fabiano, will also be summoned to the Supervisory case.
“Soon we will broadcast the interview to a mobster. It is Salvo Riina, the son of Totò Riina, the boss of the bosses of the mafia”, said Bruno Vespa, launching the interview of Totò Riina's son at the beginning of the Porta a Porta programme. “A disconcerting portrait, of course – he added -, but to fight the mafia – which is still powerful and enjoys widespread protection – you need to know it. And to get to know her better, in our opinion, there is also a need for interviews like this one. Each spectator will freely form their own opinion, also thanks to the debate that will follow with the participation, among other things, of the son of one of the victims of the Capaci massacre and one of the founders of an anti-pizzo association”.
Among the guests were Antonio Emanuele Schifani, son of Vito Schifani (one of Falcone's escort agents who was killed in the Capaci massacre. "We interviewed Totò Riina's son because for the first time we will have the opportunity to get to know the mafia from within his family. Twenty-four years on the run, spent almost without hiding, a widespread complicity, the solidarity of the whole family", concludes the presenter of Porta a Porta.
"The preventive controversies born on the episode of Porta a Porta broadcast in the evening around midnight on Rai1 have developed around a program that no Italian has yet seen". Rai specified it, explaining that "in particular, it concerns an interview in which Bruno Vespa presses the son of Totò Riina, already convicted of mafia, without discounting his relationship of respect for his father despite the atrocious crimes committed " .
Salvo Riina remembers sixteen years next to his fugitive father, the image of Totò Riina in front of the television broadcasting the massacres of Capaci and via D'Amelio, the silences in a family that knew and did not speak. Salvo Riina refuses to answer Vespa's questions about Falcone and Borsellino. No distance from the many crimes of the father, despite the repeated invitations of the journalist.
“Only in Italy does this happen – said Salvo Riina during the interview -. In many other democratic countries it does not happen that a repentant who claims to have committed hundreds of murders does not even spend a day in prison. Then they accuse people, send them to jail then go back to what they were doing before. You could choose to make a minimum of the things they had done.
On Twitter the president of the Senate Pietro Grasso: “I don't care if Riina's hands caressed his children, they are the same ones stained with innocent blood. I will not watch Porta a Porta”.
The position taken by the president of the Anti-Mafia commission, Rosy Bindi, is tough: “I hope – said Bindi – that there will be an afterthought in Rai. But if the interview with Totò Riina's son is aired tonight, we will have the confirmation that 'Porta a Porta' lends itself to being the living room of mafia denialism and I will ask the President's Office to convene the President and the Director General of Rai".
Even Michele Anzaldi, deputy of the Democratic Party and secretary of the Rai Supervisory Commission, went on the attack. "I am from Palermo. Something like this hurts my soul. The director Antonio Campo Dall'Orto and the president Monica Maggioni must come to the Supervision to explain how it is possible that the public service lends itself to these operations ".
"I learn with consternation of the decision to have the son of Totò Riina, executioner of Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino, and hundreds of other servants of the State participate in the episode of 'Porta a porta', and he too convicted for mafia association”, said Maria Falcone, sister of the judge killed by Cosa Nostra together with his wife Francesca Morvillo and three escort agents in the Capaci massacre.
Su Change.org a petition has even been created to ask for the closure of the “Porta a Porta” program after the interview with Riina Jr. In just a few hours, the initiative has collected more than 75 signatures.
