Italian mafia boss Giovanni Brusca, whose grisly crimes include dissolving a boy’s body in acid, has been released from prison this week after a 25-year reduced sentence.
The notorious Sicilian mafia turncoat, 64, has confessed his role in more than 100 murders, including the assassination of anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone in 1992.
He was arrested in 1996 and became an informant for the state four years later, helping prosecutors in their crackdown against the Cosa Nostra – the Sicilian Mafia group. He was given a reduced sentence as a result of his collaboration.
Brusca, who was known as the ‘people slayer’ and was a key operator in the Cosa Nostra, was released on Monday from Rome’s Rebibbia prison.
But his release has left many Italian people outraged, while the relatives of his victims have been left grieving and in anguish.
Brusca, who had already been granted temporary leave from prison on several occasions, will be on parole for four years, Italian media reported.
While Rosaria Costa, the widow of another policeman, told Corriere della Sera: ‘He [Brusca] has collaborated with justice only to get the benefits, it was not a personal, intimate choice.’
And Maria Falcone, the sister of the esteemed anti-mafia judge, said she was ‘saddened’ by the news of Brusca’s release.
She said although she was distressed by the news, ‘it’s the law, a law moreover wanted by my brother and that should be respected’.
The brutal killing of Falcone was followed two months later by that of anti-mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino, which is now termed ‘the massacre of Via D’Amelio’.
Italian mafia boss Giovanni Brusca
Borsellino and five members of his police escort were killed when a car bomb went off, and it was deemed one of the most notorious episodes in Italy’s long and violent struggle against organised crime.
One of Brusca’s most horrifying crimes included the death of Giuseppe Di Matteo, who was dissolved in acid because he was the son of a mafia informant.