Portella Della Ginestra Massacre - Witnesses Disappear

Witnesses Disappear

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. Pisciotta probably was the only one who could reveal the truth behind the massacre. While he was in Giuliano’s band, he carried a pass signed by a colonel of the Carabinieri that allowed him to move freely about the island. At the trial he declared, "We are one body: bandits, police and Mafia – like the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

While serving his sentence he wrote his autobiography awaiting a new trial at which he would be charged with killing Giuliano. Some authorities were beginning to take his evidence more serious, and perjury and other charges were made against police and Carabinieri. Pisciotta realised that he had been abandoned and was threatening to reveal much more than at the first trial, in particular who signed the letter which had been brought to Giuliano just before the attack. On February 9, 1954, he took a cup of coffee with what he thought was a tuberculosis medicine. Instead someone had replaced it with strychnine. Within an hour he was dead and his autobiography disappeared.

The massacre created a national scandal, which ended in 1956 with the conviction of the remaining members of Giuliano's band. It still remains a highly controversial topic. The finger of blame has been pointed at numerous sources, including the Italian government. Leftists who were the victims of the attack have blamed the landed barons and the Mafia; significantly, the memorial plaque erected by them makes no mention of Giuliano or his band:

On May 1, 1947, while celebrating the working class festival and the victory of April 20, men, women and children of Piana, S. Cipirello and S. Giuseppe fell under the bullets of the Mafia and the landed barons to crush the struggle of the peasants against feudalism.

—Portella della Ginestra massacre memorial plaque