Sicilian Mafia Commission

The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading  members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the  or Cosa Nostra. It is composed of representatives of a (a district of three geographically contiguous Mafia families) that are called capo mandamento or rappresentante. The Commission is not a central government of the Mafia, but a representative mechanism for consultation of independent Mafia families who decide by. "Contrary to the wide-spread image presented by the media, these superordinate bodies of coordination cannot be compared with the executive boards of major legal firms. Their power is intentionally limited [and] it would be entirely wrong to see in the Cosa Nostra a centrally managed, internationally active Mafia holding company," according to criminologist.

The jurisdiction extends over a province; each province of Sicily has some kind of a Commission, except Messina, Siracusa and Ragusa. Initially the idea was that the family bosses would not sit on the Commission, but in order to prevent imbalances of power some other prominent member would be appointed instead. However, that rule was not obeyed from the start. According to the  the Commission first came into being "to settle disputes between members of the various families and their bosses" in order to discipline members of each family. Only later did its function expand to "the regulation of the activities of all families in a province."

Exposure
The first time the existence of such a Commission filtered out to the rest of the world was in 1965 during the inquiry into the by judge. Terranova based himself on a confidential report of the of May 28, 1963, where a confidential informant revealed the existence of a commission composed of fifteen persons – six from Palermo city and the rest from towns in the province – "each with the rank of boss of either a group or a Mafia family." Judge Terranova did not believe that the existence of a commission meant that the Mafia was a tightly unified structure. In 1973, – a lower-level Mafioso – revealed the existence of the  Commission, but his revelations were discarded at the time and Vitale judged insane.

The existence of the Commission was first established by a court of law during the in 1986-87. The groundwork for the Maxi Trial was done at the preliminary investigative phase by Palermo's, created by judge in which the judges  and  worked as well. It was who definitively revealed the existence and workings of the Commission, when he became a state witness and started to give evidence to judge  in 1984. It enabled Falcone to argue that Cosa Nostra was a unified hierarchical structure ruled by a Commission and that its leaders – who normally would not dirty their hands with criminal acts – could be held responsible for criminal activities that were committed to benefit the organisation.

The existence and functioning of the Commission was confirmed by the first degree conviction. The Mafia was identified with the Cosa Nostra organization, and defined a unique, pyramidal and apex type organization, provincially directed by a Commission or Cupola and regionally by an interprovincial organism, in which the head of the Palermo Commission has a hegemonic role. This premise became known as the Buscetta theorem. That vision of Cosa Nostra was not immediately recognized. Other magistrates, in particular – also known as the Sentence Killer – of the Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione), sustained that Mafia associations are autonomous groups, not connected amongst themselves, and therefore, the collective responsibility for the Commission members did not exist. Carnevale’s view prevailed at the appeal of the, but at the theorem was confirmed upheld by the final sentence of the Supreme Court in January 1992. (Carnevale did not preside the court that did the ruling). In the meantime, the of Palermo was dismantled and judge  had been murdered in 1983.

Many Mafia bosses were condemned to life in prison and Cosa Nostra reacted furiously and started a series of revenge killings because of the Supreme Court sentence. The Mafia had counted on the politicians and Prime Minister  to appoint  to review the sentence. Carnevale had overturned many Mafia convictions on the slenderest of technicalities previously. Carnevale, however, had to withdraw due to pressure from the public and from – who at the time had moved to the ministry of Justice. Falcone was backed by the minister of Justice despite the fact that he served under Prime Minister Andreotti. In March 1992, Lima was killed, followed by Falcone and later that year.

Interprovincional Commission
Beyond the provincial level, details are vague. According to the  a commissione interprovinciale – Interprovincional Commission – was set up in the 1970s, while the pentito  claims that there had been a rappresentante regionale in the 1950s even before the Commissions and the capi mandamento were created. The rappresentante regionale in those days was a certain from Trapani.

The Interprovincional or Regional Commission was probably set up in February 1975 on the instigation of from Catania who became its first "secretary". The other members were for Palermo,  (Agrigento),  (Trapani),  (Enna) and  (Caltanissetta).

According to the, the Regional Commission in 1992 was made up by  for the province of Palermo,  for the province of Catania,  for the province of Enna,  for the province of Caltanissetta,  for the province of Agrigento and  for the province of Trapani.

History and rules
According to the first Sicilian Mafia Commission for the province of Palermo was formed after a  that took place in  between October 12–16, 1957, in the hotel Delle Palme and the Spanò seafood restaurant. US gangsters and  suggested their Sicilian counterparts to form a Commission, following the example of the American Mafia that had formed their  in the 1930s.

The Sicilians agreed with their suggestion and Buscetta, and  set the ground rules. Sometime in early 1958 the Sicilian Mafia formed its first Mafia Commission. It was formed among Mafia families in the, which had the highest concentration of (Mafia families), approximately 46. was appointed as its first segretario (secretary) or rappresentante regionale, essentially a "primus inter pares" – the first among equals. Initially, the secretary had very little power. His task was simply to organize the meetings.

Before that time the Mafia families were not connected by a collective structure. According to judge they "were a mosaic of small republics with topographical borders marked by tradition." In the days before the Commission coordination inside Cosa Nostra was ensured by informal meetings among the most influential members of the most powerful families. In fact, the decision to form a Commission was a formalisation of these occasional meetings into a permanent, collegial body.

Originally, to avoid excessive concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals it was decided that only "men of honour" holding no leadership position within their own family – in other words simple "soldiers" – could be appointed as members of the Commission. That rule was immediately dropped due to the opposition of some Family-bosses who threatened to abandon the project from the start.

The Commission had two main competencies. The first was to settle conflicts among Mafia families and single members, and to enforce the most serious violations of the normative codes of Cosa Nostra. Second, the Commission was entrusted with the regulation of the use of violence. It had exclusive authority to order murder of police officials, prosecutors and judges, politicians, journalists and lawyers, because these killings could provoke retaliation by law enforcement. To limit internal conflicts, it was agreed that each Family boss had to ask the Commission’s authorisation before killing any member of another Family.

Until the early 1980s the Commission’s competencies were often disregarded due to its collegial character and the wide autonomy for the Family bosses. Only when, and the  imposed their rule, the Commission became a central leadership body. However, the Commission in fact lost its autonomy and became a mere enforcement body that endorsed the decisions made by Riina and Provenzano.

The first Commission
According to Buscetta the first Commission numbered "not many more than ten" and the number was variable. Among the members of the first Commission in the were:


 * for the mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Resuttana mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the San Lorenzo mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Acquasanta mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Noce mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Palermo Centro mandamento
 * for the mandamento
 * for the mandamento
 * for the mandamento
 * for the Pagliarelli mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Santa Maria di Gesù mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Corso Calatafimi mandamento (Palermo).

The Commission, however, was not able to prevent the outbreak of a violent in 1963. Casus belli was a heroin deal gone wrong, and the subsequent killing of on December 26, 1962, who was held responsible. Instead of settling the dispute, the Commission became part of the internal conflict.

On June 30, 1963, a car bomb exploded near Greco’s house in Ciaculli, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The outrage over the changed the Mafia war into a war against the Mafia. It prompted the first concerted anti-mafia efforts by the state in post-war Italy. The Sicilian Mafia Commission was dissolved and of those mafiosi who had escaped arrest many went abroad. "Ciaschiteddu" Greco fled to Caracas in Venezuela.

According to Tommaso Buscetta it was, the boss of the Acquasanta quarter of Palermo, who was responsible for the Ciaculli bomb, and possibly the murder of boss in late 1962. Cavataio had lost out to the Greco’s in a war of the wholesale market in the mid-1950s. Cavataio killed Di Pisa in the knowledge that the La Barbera’s would be blamed by the Greco’s and a war would be the result. He kept fuelling the war through other bomb attacks and killings.

Cavataio was backed by other Mafia families who resented the growing power of the Mafia Commission to the detriment of individual Mafia families. Cavataio was killed on December 10, 1969, in the so-called in Palermo as retaliation for the events in 1963. According to Buscetta and Grado, the composition of the hit squad was a clear indication that the killing had been sanctioned collectively by all the major Sicilian Mafia families: not only did it include and  from Corleone, and members of 's family in Palermo, but also a soldier of 's family on the other end of Sicily in Riesi.

Triumvirate
The crackdown on the Mafia resulted in a period of relative peace – a "" – while many mafiosi were held in jail or were banished internally. The verdict of the against the Mafia in Catanzaro in December 1968 resulted in many acquittals or short sentences for criminal association. The vast majority of mafiosi had to be released given the time they had already spent in captivity while awaiting trial.

Under these circumstances, the Sicilian Mafia Commission was revived in 1970. It would consist of ten members but initially it was ruled by a triumvirate consisting of, and the Corleonesi boss , although it was  who actually would represent the Corleonesi, substituting Leggio who was on the run until his arrest in 1974.

In 1974 the 'full' Commission was restored under the leadership of Gaetano Badalamenti. Among the members were:


 * for the mandamento
 * for the Santa Maria di Gesù mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento, substituted by  since Leggio was arrested in 1974
 * for the mandamento, often substituted by  (father of )
 * for the Passo di Ragano mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Noce mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Partanna mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Porta Nuova mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the San Lorenzo mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento

(Several, such as , and  say that , for the - mandamento,  for the  mandamento and  for the  mandamento, were or became members as well.)

During these years tensions between different coalitions within the Commission increased. In this period the Commission was increasingly dominated by the coalition led by and  that was opposed by  and. Riina and Provenzano secretly formed an alliance of mafiosi in different families, cutting across clan divisions, in defiance of the rules concerning loyalty in Cosa Nostra. This secretive inter-family group became known as the. The wing headed by Badalamenti and Bontade defended the existing balance of power between the single Mafia families and the Commission.

Thanks to a shrewd manipulation of the rules and elimination of its most powerful rivals (in particular the killings in 1978 of and, members of the Interprovincional Commission) the Corleonesi coalition was able to increase its power within the Commission. Their rivals were overwhelmed and lost any power to strike back. Beside using violence, the Corleonesi also imposed their supremacy by shrewdly exploiting a competence of the Commission: the power to suspend leaders of a Family and to name a reggente, a temporary boss.

The 1978 Commission
In 1978, was expelled from the Commission and as head of his Family. replaced him as the secretary of the Commission. Badalamenti’s removal marked the end of a period of relative peace and signified a major change in the Mafia itself. In 1978 the Commission was composed by:


 * for the mandamento (Palermo), acting as the secretary
 * , for the mandamento, often accompanied by
 * for the Santa Maria di Gesù mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Passo di Rigano mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Porta Nuova mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento, often substituted by  (father of ) because Salamone resided in  in Brazil
 * for the Noce mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Partanna mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Resuttana mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento
 * representing
 * for the Pagliarelli mandamento (Palermo)

The Commission was divided between the Corleonesi (Riina, Calò, Madonia, Brusca, Geraci, Greco Scarpuzzedda, Motisi and probably Scaglione as well) and the group Bontade, Inzerillo and Pizzuto. A third group, Michele Greco, Riccobono and Salamone were not hostile to the group of Bontade but were against Gaetano Badalamenti.

While the more established Mafia families in the city of refrained from openly killing authorities because that would attract too much police attention, the Corleonesi deliberately killed to intimidate the authorities in such a way that the suspicion fell on their rivals in the Commission. In 1979 from Ciaculli also known as Scarpuzzedda and Riina’s favourite hit man entered the Commission as well.

Instead of avoiding conflict the Commission increasingly became an instrument in the enfolding power struggle that would eventually lead to the quasi-dictatorship of. Members of the Commission were no longer freely selected by the provinces but were chosen on the basis of their allegiance to Riina's faction, and eventually were only called to legitimize decisions that had already been taken elsewhere.

Second Mafia War
The raged from 1981-1983. On April 23, 1981, Bontade was machine gunned to death in his car in Palermo. Bontade’s close ally,, was killed three weeks later with the same. The Corleonesi slaughtered the ruling families of the Palermo Mafia to take control of the organisation while waging a parallel war against Italian authorities and law enforcement to intimidate and prevent effective investigations and prosecutions. More than 200 mafiosi were killed and many simply disappeared.

In 1982 the Commission members were:


 * and for the  mandamento
 * for the Porta Nuova mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento
 * for the Partanna mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Resuttana mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the mandamento
 * for the mandamento
 * for the mandamento
 * for the mandamento
 * of

The Commission was now dominated by Riina and Provenzano. More and more the independence of Mafia families was superseded by the authoritarian rule of Riina. Nor did the killing end when the main rivals of the Corleonesi were defeated. Whoever could challenge Riina or had lost its usefulness was eliminated. and a dozen men of his clan were killed in November 1982. In 1985, Riina’s favourite hit man, was murdered on the orders of Riina, who thought Greco was getting a bit too ambitious for his own good.

The Commission in fact lost its autonomy and became a mere enforcement body that endorsed the decisions made by Riina and Provenzano and their close group of allies. According to Buscetta: "With the power gained by the Corleonesi and their allies the traditional organizational structures had a purely formal value … the decisions were taken before … and the Commission was nothing but the faithful executor of orders."

Meanwhile, new mandamenti were formed in 1983, whose members entered the Commission: for the Noce mandamento,  for the San Lorenzo mandamento,  for the Pagliarelli mandamento and  for the Passo di Ragano-Boccadifalco mandamento. In 1986-87 the Santa Maria di Gesù mandamento (the former fiefdom of ) was reinstated, represented by.

Since the arrests as a result of the revelations of such as, ,  and , and the  in the 1980s many Commission members ended up in jail. They were substituted by a so-called sostituto or reggente.

The 1992 Commission
In 1992 the Commission that decided to kill the politician and Prime Minister ’s right-hand man on Sicily and the judges  and  was composed of:


 * and for the  mandamento
 * for the Porta Nuova mandamento (Palermo), substituting  who was in prison
 * for the Noce mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Pagliarelli mandamento (Palermo)
 * and/or for the San Lorenzo mandamento (Palermo), substituting   who was in prison
 * and for the Guadagna-Santa Maria di Gesù mandamento (Palermo)
 * the brothers and  for the - mandamento, substituting   who was in prison
 * for the Resuttana mandamento (Palermo)
 * for the Passo di Ragano-Boccadifalco mandamento (Palermo), substituting who was in prison
 * for the - mandamento
 * for the mandamento, substituting his father  who was in prison
 * for the mandamento, substituting his father  who was in prison
 * for the mandamento
 * for the mandamento
 * for the mandamento

Provenzano's new Mafia
Provenzano proposed a new less violent Mafia strategy instead of the terrorist bombing campaign in 1993 against the state to get them to back off in their crackdown against the Mafia after the murders on Anti-mafia prosecutors and. Following the months after Riina's arrest, there were a series of bombings by the Corleonesi against several tourist spots on the Italian mainland – the Via dei Georgofili in, in Milan and the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and Via San Teodoro in , which left 10 people dead and 93 injured as well as severe damage to centres of cultural heritage such as the Gallery.

Provenzano's new guidelines were patience, compartmentalisation, coexistence with state institutions, and systematic infiltration of public finance. The diplomatic Provenzano tried to stem the flow of by not targeting their families, only using violence in case of absolute necessity. Provenzano reportedly re-established the old Mafia rules that had been abolished by under his very eyes when, together with Riina and, he was ruling the Corleonesi faction.

– one of Riina's hitmen who personally detonated the bomb that killed Falcone, and later became an informant after his 1996 arrest – has offered a controversial version of the : a secret deal between officers, secret agents and Cosa Nostra bosses tired of the dictatorship of the Corleonesi. According to Brusca, Provenzano "sold" Riina in exchange for the valuable archive of compromising material that Riina held in his apartment in Via Bernini 52 in Palermo.

Apparently, the Sicilian Mafia at present is divided between those bosses who support a hard line against the Italian state – mainly bosses currently in jail such as and  – and those who support the more moderate strategy of Provenzano. The incarcerated bosses are currently subjected to harsh controls on their contact with the outside world, limiting their ability to run their operations from behind bars under the. (The human-rights group has expressed concern that the 41-bis regime could in some circumstances amount to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" for prisoners.)

– a close confidant of Provenzano, turned shortly after his capture in April 2002 – alleges that in 1993,  had direct contact with representatives of former Prime Minister  while he was planning the birth of. The deal that he says was alleged to have been made was a repeal of 41 bis, among other anti-Mafia laws in return for delivering electoral gains in Sicily. Giuffrè's declarations have not been confirmed.

During a court appearance in July 2002, suggested unnamed politicians had failed to maintain agreements with the Mafia over prison conditions. "We are tired of being exploited, humiliated, harassed and used as merchandise by political factions," he said. Nevertheless, the Italian Parliament, with the support of, subsequently prolonged the enforcement of 41 bis, which was to expire in 2002, for another four years and extended it to other crimes such as terrorism. However, according to one of Italy’s leading magazines,, 119 mafiosi – one-fifth of those incarcerated under the 41-bis regime – have been released on an individual basis.

Division and rivalry
In 2002 a rift within Cosa Nostra became clear. On the one hand there were the hardline "Corleonesi" in jail – led by and  – and on the other the more moderate "Palermitani" – led by Provenzano and,  and. Apparently the arrest of Giuffrè in April 2002 was made possible by an anonymous phone call that seems to have been made by loyalists to the Mafia hardliners Riina and Bagarella. The purpose was to send a message to Provenzano. The incarcerated bosses wanted something to be done about the harsh prison conditions (in particular the relaxation of the 41-bis incarceration regime) – and were believed to be orchestrating a return to violence while serving multiple life sentences.

Targets were to have been and former Defence Minister, both close advisors of then Prime Minister , according to a leaked report of the intelligence service SISDE. Riina and Bagarella felt betrayed by political allies in Rome, who had promised to help pass laws to ease prison conditions and reduce sentences for its jailed members in exchange for Mafia support at the polls. The SISDE report says they believed that hits on either of the two embattled members of Berlusconi's party — each under separate criminal indictments — would have been less likely to provoke the kind of public outrage and police crackdown that followed the 1992 murders of the widely admired Sicilian prosecutors  and.

According to press reports, when Provenzano was moved to the high security prison in, Totò Riina’s son , who has been sentenced to life imprisonment for three murders, yelled that Provenzano was a "sbirro" – a popular Italian pejorative expression for a police officer – when Provenzano entered the cell block. The pentito has said in October 2005 that there had been rumours within Cosa Nostra that Provenzano was an informer for the Carabinieri while he was on the run.

After Provenzano's arrest
After the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on April 11, 2006 – on the same day as 's victory in the against  – several mafiosi were mentioned as Provenzano's successor. Among the rivals were (from  and the province of Trapani),  (boss of Tommaso Natale area and the  of  in Palermo), and  from. Provenzano allegedly nominated Messina Denaro in one of his – small slips of paper used to communicate with other mafiosi to avoid phone conversations, found at Provenzano's hide out.

This presupposes that Provenzano has the power to nominate a successor, which is not unanimously accepted among Mafia observers. "The Mafia today is more of a federation and less of an authoritarian state," according to anti-Mafia prosecutor Antonio Ingroia of the (DDA) of Palermo, referring to the previous period of authoritarian rule under. Provenzano "established a kind of directorate of about four to seven people who met very infrequently, only when necessary, when there were strategic decisions to make."

According to Ingroia "in an organization like the Mafia, a boss has to be one step above the others otherwise it all falls apart. It all depends on if he can manage consensus and if the others agree or rebel." Provenzano "guaranteed a measure of stability because he had the authority to quash internal disputes." Among the members of the directorate were ; from ;  from Belmonte Mezzagno;  from ;  from ;  from ;  from ; and  from.

After the arrests of Benedetto Spera, Vincenzo Virga (both in 2001) and Antonino Giuffrè in 2002 (who decided to cooperate with the authorities), the leadership of Cosa Nostra was in the hands of the fugitives Bernardo Provenzano, Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Matteo Messina Denaro. Following Provenzano's capture in April 2006, Italy's intelligence service report warned of "emerging tensions" between mafia groups as a result of Provenzano's failure to designate either or  as his successor. The (DIA) cautioned that the capture of Provenzano could potentially present mafia leaders an opportunity to return to violence as a means of expressing their power.

Two months after Provenzano’s arrest, on June 20, 2006, authorities issued 52 arrest warrants against the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in the city of Palermo (Operation Gotha). Study of the showed that Provenzano’s joint deputies in Palermo were Salvatore Lo Piccolo and, capo-mandamento of. In a message referring to an important decision for Cosa Nostra, Provenzano told Rotolo: "It's up to you, me and Lo Piccolo to decide this thing."

The investigations showed that Rotolo had built a kind of federation within the mafia, comprising 13 families grouped in four clans. His right-hand men were – who used to be the personal physician of  and Provenzano – and the builder. The city of Palermo was ruled by this triumvirate replacing the Commission whose members are all in jail.

What emerged as well was that the position of Salvatore Lo Piccolo was not undisputed. Authorities said they avoided the outbreak of a genuine war inside Cosa Nostra. The first clash would have been between Rotolo and Lo Piccolo. What sparked off the crisis was a request from the Inzerillo family, one of the clans whose leaders – among them – were killed by the Corleonesi during the Second Mafia War in the 1980s and which are now in exile in the United States. Rotolo had passed a death sentence on Lo Piccolo and his son, Sandro, even before Provenzano's arrest – and even procured the barrels of acid that are used to dissolve the bodies of slain rivals.

Reconstitution thwarted
In December 2008, an attempt to reconstitute a new Commission was foiled, when 94 Mafiosi were arrested after a nine-month investigation dubbed "Operation Perseus" (Perseo in Italian; after the Greek mythological hero who beheaded ). From tapped phone conversations and surveillance, police had obtained a full list of those present and those who had sent their apologies, as well as details of the issues discussed and the decisions adopted.

The object, as one tapped Mafioso put it, was to "re-establish Cosa Nostra" in the old style, with a single all-powerful boss, a "". , a 65-year-old boss from Villagrazia, had been nominated as the possible head of the Commission. Among the other members were other historical Cosa Nostra bosses, such as,  from , , ,  from  and , the 87-year-old boss from. Many of those arrested had recently been released from prison on health grounds, and were serving out their sentences under house arrest.

Among the younger bosses were, the young and upcoming boss from Pagliarelli and , the son of who had been Riina’s driver. A preliminary summit meeting had been held on November 14, 2008, with Lo Presti, Scaduto, Capizzi – and also Nicchi. The new Commission had the blessing of the old bosses and, as well as , the boss from the province of Trapani. Not everyone agreed, however. from the Porta Nuova family objected to the choice of Capizzi as the new head. He committed suicide after his arrest. Police feared the outbreak of a new Mafia war and decided to interfere. Nicchi and Fidanzati escaped the arrests, but were captured later. After the death of Riina on 17 November 2017, was elected the new head on 29 May 2018 until his arrest on 4 December 2018.