“When the people of the State decided to start the “negotiations”, they accepted and accelerated the death programme of Totò Riina, who had decided to kill some people, such as judge Paolo Borsellino”. This is what Massimo Ciancimino said answering a question asked by Salvatore Borsellino, brother of the judge, about whether his father Vito Ciancimino had realized that the negotiation between the State and the Mafia had “decided the physical elimination of judge Paolo Borsellino”. “My father – answered Ciacimino – didn’t even want to start the negotiation, because he considered it a mortal sin. When he realized that the State wanted to bring forward the negotiation, he understood that some people would have been killed”.

Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute