Giovanni Falcone

Giovanni Falcone was an Italian magistrate whose investigations transformed the prosecution of the Sicilian Mafia. The Mafia assassinated him in 1992 with a bomb near Capaci, Sicily.

Maxi Trial: A landmark Palermo prosecution of hundreds of alleged Mafia members, held from 1986 to 1987. Falcone’s investigative work helped build the evidence behind this mass prosecution.
Pentito: An Italian term for a former member of a criminal organization who cooperates with the authorities. Falcone used testimony from informants such as Tommaso Buscetta to map Mafia structures.
Paolo Borsellino: An Italian magistrate who investigated the Sicilian Mafia and was assassinated in Palermo in 1992. Borsellino was Falcone’s close colleague in Palermo’s anti-Mafia investigations.
Anti-Mafia Commission: A parliamentary body established to investigate the Mafia and propose measures against organized crime in Italy. Falcone’s work and assassination strengthened public pressure for a more forceful national response.
Capaci bombing: The 1992 Mafia attack near Capaci, Sicily, that killed Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three police officers. This assassination ended Falcone’s life and made his opposition to the Mafia a national symbol.
Mafia Commission: A governing body through which leading Sicilian Mafia families coordinated decisions and settled disputes. Evidence about this body helped prosecutors connect individual crimes to organized leadership.
Rocco Chinnici: A Palermo magistrate who developed the collaborative Anti-Mafia Pool and was killed by a Mafia car bomb in 1983. Chinnici established the investigative team in which Falcone became a leading figure.
Italian antimafia legislation: Italian laws that target Mafia organizations, their assets, and their criminal activities. Falcone’s investigations helped expose the need for legal tools addressing organized crime as a system.
Via D'Amelio bombing: A 1992 Mafia bombing in Palermo that killed magistrate Paolo Borsellino and five members of his escort. Borsellino’s assassination followed Falcone’s and intensified public outrage against the Mafia.
Italian Mafia turncoats law: Italian legislation offering sentence reductions to members of organized crime who cooperate with the state. Legal incentives helped make insider testimony a sustained investigative tool.

Linked from 14 pages