Murder of policeman Agostino, life sentence for boss Scotto

Palermo, 7 Oct. (Adnkronos) – Dad Vincenzo had been waiting for this moment for 35 years, since on 5 August 1989 the Cosa Nostra hitmen killed his policeman son, Nino Agostino, and his wife Ida Castelluccio, who was 4 months pregnant. He always repeated it: “Only when justice is done will I cut my beard”. But he didn’t make it in time. Because he died last April 24th. However, this afternoon there were his daughters, Ida and Flora, and his nephew Nino Morana, who grew up with his grandfather in search of justice. The sentence arrived after more than 7 hours of deliberation in the bunker room of the Pagliarelli prison in Palermo. Life sentence for the boss Gaetano Scotto. “Today my grandfather would have cut his beard, and we all cut it metaphorically. With him,” said his nephew Nino Morana. “It’s partly a victory for all of us,” he added. But first he launched an appeal to the boss Gaetano Scotto: “Collaborate to shed light on the many obscure points regarding the death of my uncle Nino…”.

Next to him there is also Don Luigi Ciotti. The Free Association was a civil party in the trial. The Attorney General Lia Sava is also excited, having supported the accusation with Umberto De Giglio and Nico Gozzo. Gaetano Scotto was accused of aggravated double homicide while Francesco Paolo Rizzuto, the co-defendant who was acquitted at the request of the General Prosecutor’s Office, of aggravated aiding and abetting. Scotto was also sentenced to pay over half a million euros in compensation to the civil parties.

During the trial it emerged that the policeman Nino Agostino, who at the time was on duty at the San Lorenzo police station in Palermo, was collecting information on fugitives in the Resuttana district. “An important fact that proves decisive in the evaluation of what must be the responsibility of those who were part of this criminal group”, explained the defense of the civil parties during their arguments. There were no replies, neither from the Attorney General nor from the defense, before the judges entered the chamber. In the past, the boss Nino Madonia had been judged in a parallel proceeding with an abbreviated trial. Now in the dock Gaetano Scotto, his close collaborator, for whom the general prosecutor’s office in recent weeks has requested a life sentence. Which was granted today. But for Scotto’s defense it would not have been a mafia murder. The crime would have been of a very “different nature which originates from very different relationships”. Elements that would lead “to the absolute lack of evidence against Scotto Gaetano. For these reasons, I conclude, as did my previous defender, asking for Scotto Gaetano’s acquittal for not having committed the disputed act”, said the lawyer Giuseppe Scozzola.

Prosecutor Umberto De Giglio said during the indictment that the elements collected “in this trial demonstrate with certainty that the police officer Antonino Agostino was murdered by individuals belonging to Cosa Nostra”. In particular “from Scotto and Madonia”. According to the general prosecutor’s office, “Scotto physically carried out the murder as Vito Lo Forte, Vito Galatolo and Oreste Pagano unanimously tell us based on the information they learned from different sources and in different contexts”. ”All the directions of the different views from which the double murder can be analyzed intersect precisely on the position of Scotto’s figure. All the evidentiary trajectories lead us to Scotto”, explained Prosecutor De Giglio during the indictment.

And again: “All the directions of the different views from which the double murder can be analyzed intersect precisely on the position of Scotto’s figure. All evidential trajectories lead us to Scotto.” Not only that. The prosecution also considers the Acquasanta boss as “one of the instigators of the murder”. And this “not only as a top exponent of the Resuttana district, in close relations with Nino Madonia, but also due to the particular relationships that Scotto had with men of the institutions such as Marshal Salzano and Giovanni Aiello (monster face ed.). And therefore due to that particular position occupied by Scotto precisely in that space of complicity between the mafia and the institutions. That same space into which Agostino had entered in his information gathering activity. And in which the murder of Agostino must be placed”.

The policeman Agostino, the general prosecutor’s office recalled, “had come into contact with subjects linked to secret services, establishing relationships of at least operational collaboration” with them. He had come into contact with judge Giovanni Falcone – having served as protection for the extremist Alberto Volo, whom Falcone had heard at the time – and “had tried to gather information on the attack in Addaura” in which Falcone was supposed to have died.

“All this – said De Giglio in his indictment – ​​had introduced him into that space of contiguity in which the illicit connections between the mafia world and the state apparatus occurred. He had seen meetings between mafiosi and representatives of the institutions. Or at least he had understood the illicit meaning of the systemic relations between the two worlds. By demonstrating his desire not to end up in this cauldron, Agostino had earned the hostility not only from Cosa Nostra but also from within his own world. In particular of those in the institutions who feared that Augustine might reveal what he had experienced and above all what he had seen.”

The young policeman “was also killed to prevent him from revealing the information he had collected regarding the existing relationships between mafia members and some men of the state, belonging to the police or secret services”. According to the Attorney General’s Office, it is “still established that in some circles of the police and services the elimination of Agostino was welcomed. Finally, it is proven that subjects linked to or belonging to security services carried out misleading actions, aimed at diverting the investigation into the double murder with the aim of hiding the activity actually carried out by Agostino”. This afternoon, at 5.16pm, the long-awaited, long-sought sentence arrived from father Vincenzo Agostino. That today he would shave his beard. After 35 years. (by Elvira Terranova)