Thirty years ago, Judge Giovanni Falcone died in a bomb attack orchestrated by the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra.

This Monday, Italy paid tribute to him.

"Thanks to Falcone's courage, professionalism and determination, Italy has become a freer and fairer country," Prime Minister Mario Draghi said in a statement.

“Falcone and his colleagues in the anti-mafia pool of Palermo have not only inflicted decisive blows on the mafia.

Their heroism has rooted the values ​​of the antimafia in society, in new generations, in republican institutions,” he added.

Symbol of the surge of the Italian State against Cosa Nostra

On May 23, 1992 at 5:58 p.m., a 500-kilogram load of TNT and ammonium nitrate ripped through a portion of the highway leading to Palermo airport, pulverizing a car from Judge Falcone's escort, which was thrown several hundred of meters.

The three policemen on board are killed.

In the other car, an armored white Fiat Croma, Judge Falcone, who is driving, and his wife Francesca Morvillo, on the passenger side, are fatally injured.

Only their driver, seated in the back, survives.

Judge Falcone, symbol of the start of the Italian State against Cosa Nostra, had notably instructed the first "maxi-trial" of the mafia which led in 1987 to the conviction of hundreds of mafiosos.

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