Gaspare Pisciotta - Trial

Trial

Shortly after Giuliano's death on July 5, 1950, Pisciotta was captured and brought to trial for his crimes as a bandit. During the trial for the Portella della Ginestra massacre he made the startling revelation that it had been he who assassinated Giuliano in his sleep, a statement which contradicted the police account that Giuliano had been shot by Carabinieri captain Antonio Perenze in a gunfight in Castelvetrano. He claimed to have killed Giuliano on the instruction of Mario Scelba, then Minister of the Interior, and to have had an arrangement with Colonel Ugo Luca, the head of the anti-bandit force in Sicily, to collaborate on the condition that he should not be charged and that Luca would intervene in his favour if he were caught.

At the trial, Pisciotta said: "Those who have made promises to us are called Bernardo Mattarella, Prince Alliata, the monarchist MP Marchesano and also Signor Scelba, Minister for Home Affairs … it was Marchesano, Prince Alliata and Bernardo Mattarella who ordered the massacre of Portella di Ginestra. Before the massacre they met Giuliano…" However the MPs Mattarella, Alliata and Marchesano were declared innocent by the Court of Appeal of Palermo, at a trial which dealt with their alleged role in the event. During his trial Pisciotta could not account for Giuliano’s documents in which he named the high-ranking government officials and mafiosi involved with Giuliano’s band.

Pisciotta was sentenced to life in imprisonment and forced labour; most of the other 70 bandits met the same fate. Others were at large, but one by one they all disappeared. When Pisciotta realized that he had been abandoned by all and was condemned, he declared that he was going to tell the whole truth, in particular who signed the letter which had been brought to Giuliano on April 27, 1947, which demanded the massacre at Portella delle Ginistra in exchange for liberty for us all and which Giuliano had destroyed immediately.

Giuliano's mother reportedly had suspected Pisciotta as a potential traitor before her son's death, although Giuliano had tried to convince her of his trust in his lieutenant in a letter: "...we respect each other as brothers' what he is I am, and what I am he is." If Gaspare Pisciotta’s testimony was true, Giuliano suspected nothing until the time of his death.