Nicola Gratteri, the man who brings the most powerful Italian mafia to justice
Nicola Gratteri, speaking to reporters, January 13, 2021. REUTERS - YARA NARDI
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A maxi-trial against the all-powerful Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, opened this Wednesday in Italy.
At the helm of the investigation, a man, under police protection for 30 years: the prosecutor Nicola Gratteri.
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Nicola Gratteri, 62, has lived under police escort for over 30 years.
Precisely since 1989, when he began his fight against the 'Ndrangheta, our correspondent in Rome,
Anne Le Nir
, reminds us
.
The famous prosecutor grew up, so to speak, with this criminal organization, now present all over the world: he was born in Gerace, a village in Locride where the first clans, the “Ndrines”, were formed.
The man in charge of the
maxi-trial which opened this Wednesday
often recalls that he attended the same school as the sons of bosses and that his experience marked him to the point of deciding very early on to embrace the career of magistrate.
But this father of two medical children, who had to flee Calabria, also likes to recall his rural roots.
He humorously describes himself as an “
infiltrated farmer in the judiciary
”.
A magistrate well regarded by politicians
In February 2014, the
newly elected
Renzi
government
let circulate the name of the magistrate for the post of Keeper of the Seals.
But for reasons of balance between the different components of the majority, as well as because of the opposition of the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, it is ultimately Andrea Orlando who will be preferred to him.
That same month, Nicola Gratteri was offered the post of adviser to the parliamentary anti-mafia committee.
He chooses to decline because he finds this function incompatible with his functions at the prosecution.
In 2016, he was appointed prosecutor of Catanzaro, the capital of Calabria, after having headed that of Reggio Calabria.
Thanks to him,
300 suspects were arrested in an unprecedented crackdown in 2019.
Three clans of the powerful Calabrian mafia were thus wiped out after years of investigation carried out like a war and which led investigators from the north to the south of France. Italy, but also in Bulgaria, Switzerland and Germany.
Because the 'Ndrangheta is a sprawling organization.
According to the Italian justice, it has 20,000 members around the world and generates an annual turnover of more than 50 billion euros.
A symbolic fight
Among the accused, traders, a former parliamentarian, mayors, a municipal police commander, a colonel of the carabinieri.
Nicola Gratteri hopes that the maxi-trial which has just opened will make it possible to "
lay a milestone in the construction of a wall against all the mafias
".
Last November, he published with the historian Antonio Nicaso a book entitled
Illegal Oxygen,
in which he denounces the inaction of European politicians, not wary enough about the rise of the mafias, beyond the Italian borders, especially as pandemic.
He calls for more European and international cooperation.
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