The call center set up to accommodate the trial of the Calabrian mafia, in Lamezia Terme in Italy.
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GIANLUCA CHININEA / AFP
This Wednesday is a historic day in Lamezia Terme, Italy: more than 350 members and accomplices of the Calabrian mafia 'Ndrangheta appear in court for an extraordinary trial.
A very specific system has been put in place so that this river trial can take place in the midst of a pandemic.
One of the strengths of this trial is that it attacks the Mafiosi but also their accomplices in civil society, explains Fabrice Rizzoli, doctor of political science, researcher specializing in organized crime.
Code name ?
"Rinascita", "rebirth".
This Wednesday, an extraordinary trial opened in Italy, that of the Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta.
This is the most important for thirty years.
On the dock, the boss Luigi Mancuso, who has already spent nearly twenty years in prison, but also dozens of others endowed with nicknames worthy of a Hollywood movie: "The Wolf", "P'tit Gros ”,“ Blondinet ”,“ Petite Chèvre ”… With more than 900 witnesses, 350 accused mafia or accomplices and a court set up for the occasion, this trial is“ a milestone in the construction of a wall against the mafias in Italy, ”the prosecutor behind the charges Nicola Gratteri told AFP.
Why is this trial historic?
20 Minutes
explains everything to you.
What is the 'Ndrangheta, the mafia organization in the sights of justice?
Long obscured by Cosa Nostra and the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta is now the most powerful criminal group in the country.
It alone weighs more than McDonald's and the Bank of Germany combined, says
the Guardian
, with an annual turnover of 53 billion euros, which has grown thanks to the trafficking of cocaine but also thanks to the dirty money or tourism.
What has long preserved the Calabrian Mafia from justice is that it was built on blood ties: you are part of it by being a son, cousin or by marrying one of the daughters of the family.
"It is much more difficult to denounce her husband, her brother, her son, his wife", explains Fabrice Rizzoli, doctor in political science, researcher specializing in organized crime.
The 'Ndrangheta moreover ruthlessly punishes the "repentants" who choose to testify against it.
Proof of the importance of this trial, 58 prosecution witnesses agreed to break the omerta, the law of silence, to reveal the secrets of the Mancuso clan and its associates, including one of the Mancuso sons.
Who is the prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, at the origin of the lawsuits against the Mancuso family?
At 62, he is one of Italy's best-known anti-mafia figures.
Gratteri has also been under close police protection for three decades.
"I have known the Mafia since my childhood because I hitchhiked to go to school and I often saw corpses on the road," he told AFP before the trial began.
“I said to myself: when I grow up, I want to do something to make sure that doesn't happen again.
"
Why is this trial different from others?
This maxi-trial is taking place, under the leadership of the prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, in a large call center specially fitted out as a high security court in Lamezia Terme, a town in Calabria, in southern Italy.
The courtroom, which can hold a thousand people, contains cells for the defendants, although many will attend the trial remotely via video conference because of the pandemic.
To back up his accusations, Gratteri collected 24,000 wiretaps.
In this territory which had not yet known a major anti-Mafia trial, the magistrate does not hesitate to attack the accomplices of the 'Ndrangheta.
"It's what we call" the mafia bourgeoisie ", explains Fabrice Rizzoli, who describes it as the" network of mafia ".
“The strength of the Mafia is its complicity with the legal world.
On the side of the accused, we find a former head of the municipal police, a former mayor of Nicoterra, a seaside resort completely under the thumb of the mafia, entrepreneurs, accomplice lawyers, who pass messages and orders in prison ….
This is also the stake of this trial.
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How were the suspects arrested?
Most of the defendants were arrested in police raids in December 2019 in Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Bulgaria.
More spectacularly, some were arrested by the elite unit of the Carabinieri (the Italian police), the Hunters, says the
Guardian
, who flushed out the suspects in bunkers "hidden behind sliding stairs and hatches".
The range of crimes and offenses with which they are accused is wide: mafia association, murders and attempted murders, drug trafficking, usury, abuse of power, concealment and money laundering.
Will this deal a blow to the Calabrian mafia?
It is unlikely that this trial will bring down the Calabrian mafia: of the 7,000 members of the 'Ndrangheta in Italy, not to mention the entire diaspora present on the five continents, only 350 are accused in this trial.
The stake is elsewhere, for Fabrice Rizzoli: “In the province of Vibo Valentia, in particular in the village of Limbadi, the climate has changed.
In December, people took to the streets to support this trial.
What matters is the end of this silence, which will allow the inhabitants of the region to breathe a little more.
This trial is expected to last a year, according to prosecutor Gratteri, but many believe it will last much longer.
Miscellaneous
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"How is it possible that they are still powerful?" ... Italy distraught by the force of its mafias
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