Corleonesi Trial
Leggio would play a significant role in the third trial which began in February 1969, just two-months after the end of the Trial of the 114. This trial, which took place once again on the Italian mainland, in the town of Bari, had sixty-four defendants, all from the town of Corleone.
The charges related to a Mafia War in Corleone that started in 1958 when the local Mafia boss Michele Navarra was gunned down by Leggio and his men and lasted five-years, resulting in over fifty murders, as Leggio and his faction battled it out with Navarra's supporters. Leggio, who was victorious and now the new Corleonesi Boss, was the key defendant, charged with murdering nine people, including Navarra. Amongst his co-defenndants was his eventual successor, Salvatore Riina, also accused of Navarra's slaying.
Bernardo Provenzano should have stood trial too, having been indicted for triple murder in 1963, but he had somehow escaped the police dragnet, something he managed to do until 2006.
The prosecutor was once again Cesare Terranova, who had made it clear that he was intent on putting Leggio away for good.
As was the case in all three trials, the defendants pleaded innocent and insisted they were not members of any Mafia, and that they had never heard of such an organization. When Leggio took the stand he made the rather strange claim that he was being framed by a police officer who had "begged me repeatedly to pleasure his wife; and I, for moral reasons, refused...Please don't ask me for names, I am a gentleman." He and some other defendants did, however, admit to the minor crime of dealing on the black market during World War II.
There was significant evidence tampering during the trial. For example, fragments of a broken car light found at the Navarra murder scene which had been identified as belonging to an Alfa Romeo car owned by Leggio had, by the time of the trial, been replaced by bits of a broken light from a completely different make of car.
As the jury retired in July, they and the judge received an anonymous note that read:
| “ | To the President of the Court of Assizes of Bari and members of the Jury:
You people in Bari have not understood, or rather, you don't want to understand, what Corleone means. You are judging honest gentlemen of Corleone, denounced through caprice by the Carabinieri and police. We simply want to warn you that if a single gentleman from Corleone is convicted, you will be blown sky high, you will be wiped out, you will be butchered and so will every member of your family. We think we've been clear. Nobody must be convicted. Otherwise you will condemned to death - you and your families. A Sicilian proverb says: "A man warned is a man saved". It's up to you. Be wise. |
” |
All sixty-four defendants were acquitted.
Cesare Terranova successfully appealed against the acquittal of the "gentlemen from Corleone" so many, including Leggio and Riina, had to go into hiding almost as soon as they were released. Leggio was retried in absentia for the Navarra murder in 1970, and this time found guilty, but it was four-years before he could be captured and sent off to serve his life sentence.
Salvatore Riina, also convicted in absentia at a second trial for murdering Navarra, remained a fugitive until 1993.
Read more about this topic: 1960s Sicilian Mafia Trials
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