Free Republic

A bomb at a vocational school in the port city of Brindisi on the Adriatic coast in Southern Italy has killed two students and injured another five as classes were preparing to start this morning as reported by David Batty for The Guardian. The school was named in honor of the wife of anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone after both were slain almost exactly twenty years ago as reported by Nick Squires for The Telegraph: "the prosecutor, his wife and their three bodyguards were killed on May 23 1992, when the Sicilian Mafia planted half a tonne of explosives on the...

In Palermo, Sicily hundreds of Italians gathered today "to commemorate murdered anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino 18 years after his death" as reported by David Willey for BBC News: "He was killed by a car bomb in one the most brutal attacks on Italian justice. * * * After several trials, the truth about who organised the murder of Borsellino, and fellow judge Giovanni Falcone the same year, remains elusive."

'Do you realise how much strength is needed to strangle a man?" asked Francesco Marino Mannoia. The magistrate listened carefully. "It can take as long as 10 minutes," Marino Mannoia went on, "and sometimes the victim slips out, bites and kicks. Some even manage to break free for a while. But at least it's a professional way of doing the job." This witness was genuine, magistrate Giovanni Falcone decided after listening to such insights into life in the Sicilian mafia. He considered Marino Mannoia an exceptionally bright and honest pentito - the Italian term for a mafioso who turns informant...