Ahead of the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Piersanti Mattarella, the brother of the current Italian president, Piersanti Mattarella, there has been a breakthrough in the decades-long investigation. According to the Italian media, the prosecutor’s office has identified the perpetrators of the attack, who were ordered by the Sicilian mafia.
On January 6, 1980, the then governor of Sicily, Piersanti Mattarella, was gunned down in central Palermo while attending church with his family. The killer opened fire at him from a passing car. He fired six shots. His managers were convicted in connection with the attack.
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In recent days, according to “La Repubblica” and “La Stampa”, the prosecutor’s office investigated two people who – according to the latest findings – were the direct perpetrators of the attack. Both are serving life sentences for dozens of other mafia crimes.
Piersanti Mattarella Apg Archive / Portfolio Mondadori via Getty Images
One of the criminals was the son of a powerful mafia leader
As the newspapers reported with reference to the investigators, Antonino Madonia – the son of the powerful and deceased president of Palermo Francesco Madonia, who was convicted of ordering this crime, shot the head of the Sicilian government, the then Christian Democratic politician.
The car from which the killer shot, Giuseppe Lucchese, was also responsible for many mafia attacks.
As the press explains, progress in the investigation was made possible thanks to the photo that reached the prosecutor’s office, which appealed to newspapers and agencies to provide all the photos from the scene.
Main image credit: Archivio Apg/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
