the Church was equally compromised, as one anti-Mafia activist comments: ‘I used to see the archbishop of Cinisi arm in arm with Giuseppe Finazzo’, one of Badalamenti’s most trusted lieutenants. There was a rumour in Cinisi that this priest allowed Luciano Leggio to hide out in his church. In any event, it is hard not to disagree with the following comment: ‘As for taking care of people’s souls, the Mafia here in Cinisi have always been very good!’
But where had Badalamenti been hiding for the last six years? Again, nobody knows for sure. But in all likelihood he was often ‘hiding’ at home, in Cinisi.
One of the young men in Cinisi who was starting to rebel against his Mafia background remembered that during this time: ‘Very often I used to see these police – and this was something that annoyed me intensely – going off to have a coffee with Mafiosi . Sometimes people might say “what does that prove?”, but to me and lots of other people it was obvious what going to the bar with Mafiosi meant, everyone knew they were Mafiosi .’ He was right. In a Mafiaridden town, for a policeman to go to a bar with a Mafioso means the same thing as handing over the keys to the jail. The important thing about it was that everybody saw it happening and understood what it meant – that these people were friends, they would help each other out. A wellknown opponent of the Mafia remembers: ‘The police never had any problems with the Mafiosi , they had problems with us! So people used to see who the authorities dealt with and drew their own conclusions.’ All these messages came over clearer than front-page headlines in a newspaper, because everybody in town followed the local gossip.
Badalamenti too once recalled a senior local officer thus: ‘when somebody wanted to have a coffee . . . he wanted to have a coffee. But only he would pay, he wouldn’t let anyone else pay.’ In always paying, the policeman wanted everyone to know that he intended to cultivate this relationship – for whatever reason.
It is not surprising then, that according to another Mafia supergrass, it was widely known that Badalamenti and his gang: ‘had the police stations of Cinisi and Terrasini in their pocket’. So when Badalamenti was facing an arrest warrant: ‘sometimes he went on the run in Cinisi, particularly in the summer. It was quiet there, nobody went looking for him.’ Obscenity piles upon obscenity: through much of the 1960s police issued Badalamenti, of all people, with a gun licence.
In a typically indirect manner, the Mafia would send messages to keen young officers who arrived in the town. Pino Manzella recalls:
I always remember that back then, whenever a new police superintendent arrived, soon afterwards there was a bank robbery. The superintendent then somehow understood he had to behave in a certain way, and after that there were no more bank robberies, break-ins, etc etc. The bank robbery was a message which said: ‘unless you mind your own business, and allow us to mind ours, then there will be a lot more bank robberies.’ Sometimes a housebreaker would disappear. Rather than taking him to the police they would kill him and burn his car. So back then nothing ever happened, you could leave your door unlocked at night, nothing would happen. Things were totally calm here, but this was due more to the Mafia than the police . . .
Such an arrangement helped the police, as it contributed to keeping the overall crime rate down, and for the Mafia it meant less patrols and investigations – and therefore better conditions to run their illegal businesses.
Indeed, Salvatore Maltese, a long-term fascist councillor, recalled that other traditional ‘pillars of the community’ had a very small role to play: ‘There was a time here when lawyers had no work at all. This was because all disputes were settled by Mafiosi . Whenever there was a dispute over land boundaries, or problems between a man and a woman, or animals
But where had Badalamenti been hiding for the last six years? Again, nobody knows for sure. But in all likelihood he was often ‘hiding’ at home, in Cinisi.
One of the young men in Cinisi who was starting to rebel against his Mafia background remembered that during this time: ‘Very often I used to see these police – and this was something that annoyed me intensely – going off to have a coffee with Mafiosi . Sometimes people might say “what does that prove?”, but to me and lots of other people it was obvious what going to the bar with Mafiosi meant, everyone knew they were Mafiosi .’ He was right. In a Mafiaridden town, for a policeman to go to a bar with a Mafioso means the same thing as handing over the keys to the jail. The important thing about it was that everybody saw it happening and understood what it meant – that these people were friends, they would help each other out. A wellknown opponent of the Mafia remembers: ‘The police never had any problems with the Mafiosi , they had problems with us! So people used to see who the authorities dealt with and drew their own conclusions.’ All these messages came over clearer than front-page headlines in a newspaper, because everybody in town followed the local gossip.
Badalamenti too once recalled a senior local officer thus: ‘when somebody wanted to have a coffee . . . he wanted to have a coffee. But only he would pay, he wouldn’t let anyone else pay.’ In always paying, the policeman wanted everyone to know that he intended to cultivate this relationship – for whatever reason.
It is not surprising then, that according to another Mafia supergrass, it was widely known that Badalamenti and his gang: ‘had the police stations of Cinisi and Terrasini in their pocket’. So when Badalamenti was facing an arrest warrant: ‘sometimes he went on the run in Cinisi, particularly in the summer. It was quiet there, nobody went looking for him.’ Obscenity piles upon obscenity: through much of the 1960s police issued Badalamenti, of all people, with a gun licence.
In a typically indirect manner, the Mafia would send messages to keen young officers who arrived in the town. Pino Manzella recalls:
I always remember that back then, whenever a new police superintendent arrived, soon afterwards there was a bank robbery. The superintendent then somehow understood he had to behave in a certain way, and after that there were no more bank robberies, break-ins, etc etc. The bank robbery was a message which said: ‘unless you mind your own business, and allow us to mind ours, then there will be a lot more bank robberies.’ Sometimes a housebreaker would disappear. Rather than taking him to the police they would kill him and burn his car. So back then nothing ever happened, you could leave your door unlocked at night, nothing would happen. Things were totally calm here, but this was due more to the Mafia than the police . . .
Such an arrangement helped the police, as it contributed to keeping the overall crime rate down, and for the Mafia it meant less patrols and investigations – and therefore better conditions to run their illegal businesses.
Indeed, Salvatore Maltese, a long-term fascist councillor, recalled that other traditional ‘pillars of the community’ had a very small role to play: ‘There was a time here when lawyers had no work at all. This was because all disputes were settled by Mafiosi . Whenever there was a dispute over land boundaries, or problems between a man and a woman, or animals
Similar Books
