- Giuseppe Calò
Infobox_person
name=Giuseppe Calò
imagesize=
caption =
birth_date=birth date and age|1931|9|30
birth_place=Palermo ,Italy
death_date =
occupation=Mafia boss
nationality = flagicon|Italy Italian
salary=
spouse=
children=Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò (born
September 30 ,1931 in Palermo) is a member of the SicilianMafia . He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarilymoney laundering .Boss of the Porta Nuova Mafia family
Born and raised in
Palermo , the capital of Sicily, he was inducted into the Porta Nuova Mafia Family at the age of twenty-three after carrying out a murder to avenge his father. By 1969 he was the boss of Porta Nuova, and amongst his men was the future informant (pentito )Tommaso Buscetta . Calò was on theSicilian Mafia Commission , a group of the most powerful Mafia bosses in Sicily who regularly met, supposedly to iron out differences and solve disputes.In the beginning of the 1970s Calò moved to Rome. Under the guise of an antiques dealer and under the false identity of Mario Agliarolo he invested in real estate and laundered large proceeds of crime for many Mafia families. He was able to establish close links with common criminals of the
Banda della Magliana , neo-fascist groups and members of the Italian intelligence agencies.During the early 1980s he supported
Salvatore Riina and theCorleonesi during theSecond Mafia War that decimated the rival Mafia families.Calò arranged the bombing of the 904 express train between Florence and Bologna on
December 23 ,1984 that killed 16 people and injured around 200 others. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEEDA133CF935A15751C0A96F948260 Italy Convicts 7 in Bombing Of Train Fatal to 16 in 1984] ,Associated Press , on "The New York Times ", February 26, 1989 ] It was meant to divert attention from the revelations given by various Mafia informants, including Buscetta. Calò and his men had joined up withneo-fascist terrorists to carry out the atrocity.Giuseppe Calò's 1985 arrest
After several years as a fugitive, Calò was arrested on
March 30 ,1985 , in a villa atPoggio San Lorenzo , in theprovince of Rieti , together withAntonio Rotolo , one of the Mafia's heroin movers. He was one of the hundreds of defendants at theMaxi Trial that started the following year, where he was charged with Mafia association, money laundering and the Naples train bombing. He cross-examined Tommaso Buscetta himself and the pair, who had previously been lifelong friends, engaged in a vicious round of mud-slinging and insults as they attempted to discredit each other.At the end of the Maxi Trial in 1987 Calò was found guilty and given two
life sentences . Anti-Mafia prosecutors and investigators were outraged when it was discovered in 1989 that Calò and a number of other convicted Mafia bosses were living a life of relative luxury in their own section of the prison hospital, being waited on by common criminals and having their food brought in from the outside. Calò was supposedly suffering fromasthma but he showed no symptoms. The anti-Mafia judges forced Calò and his fellow Mafiosi back to their cells. He was substituted bySalvatore Cancemi ascapo mandamento of the Puorta Nova family.Roberto Calvi's 1982 murder
In July 1991 the Mafia
pentito (a mafioso turned informer)Francesco Marino Mannoia claimed thatRoberto Calvi – nicknamed "God's banker" because he was in charge ofBanco Ambrosiano , in which theVatican Bank was the main share-holder – had been killed in 1982 because he had lost Mafia funds when the Banco Ambrosiano collapsed. [ [http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=234872006 Mafia 'murdered banker over bungled deal'] , The Scotsman, February 15, 2006] According to Mannoia the killer wasFrancesco Di Carlo , a mafioso living in London at the time, and the order to kill Calvi had come from Calò andLicio Gelli , the head of the secret Italian masonic lodgePropaganda Due (P2). When Di Carlo became an informer in June 1996, he denied that he was the killer, but admitted that he had been approached by Calò to do the job. However, Di Carlo could not be reached in time, and when he later called Calò, the latter said that everything had been taken care of already. [ [http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/11/wmafia11.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/11/ixworld.html Mafia wanted me to kill Calvi, says jailed gangster] , Daily Telegraph, December 10, 2005]In 1997, Italian prosecutors in
Rome implicated Calò in Calvi's murder, along withFlavio Carboni , a Sardinian businessman with wide ranging interests, as well asErnesto Diotallevi (one of the leaders of the "Banda della Magliana ", a Roman Mafia-like organization) and Di Carlo.In July 2003, the prosecution concluded that the Mafia acted not only in its own interests, but also to ensure that Calvi could not blackmail "politico-institutional figures and [representatives] of freemasonry, the P2 lodge, and the
IOR with whom he had invested substantial sums of money, some of it from Cosa Nostra and Italian public corporations". [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1005411,00.html Calvi was murdered by the mafia, Italian experts rule] , The Guardian, July 25, 2003] The trial finally began in October 2005. [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1586164,00.html Calvi murder trial opens in Rome] , Associated Press, October 6, 2005] [ [http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article317471.ece The case of God's Banker: Roberto Calvi the trial begins, The Independent] , October 6, 2005]In March 2007, prosecutor
Luca Tescaroli requested life sentences for the already convicted Pippo Calò, Flavio Carboni, Ernesto Diotallevi and Calvi's bodyguard Silvano Vittor. All of them deny involvement. Tescaroli began his conclusions by saying Calvi was killed "to punish him for taking large quantities of money from criminal organisations and especially the Mafia organisation known as the 'Cosa Nostra'." [ [http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUKNOA74725120070307 Four accused of "God's banker" death may face life] , Reuters, March 7, 2007]On
June 6 ,2007 , Calò and his co-defendants were cleared of murdering Calvi. [ [http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1269201,00.html God's Banker' Murder - Five Cleared] , Sky News, June 6, 2007] The presiding judge in the trial threw out the charges because of "insufficient evidence" in a surprise verdict after 20 months of evidence. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6726353.stm Five acquitted over Calvi death] , BBC News, June 6, 2007] [ [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1893110.ece Five cleared over murder of 'God's Banker'] , The Times, June 6, 2007] Calò, who gave evidence from his high security prison, denied the charges. "I had no interest in killing Calvi," he said. "I didn't have the time, nor the inclination. Besides, if I had wanted him dead do you not think I would have picked my own people to do the job?" Calò's defence argued there were others who had wanted Calvi silenced. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6728315.stm The many secrets of 'God's Banker'] , BBC News, June 6, 2007]Dissociation
In September 2001, in the course of the trial of the Via D'Amelio bloodbath that killed judge
Paolo Borsellino , Pippo Calò declared he dissociated from Cosa Nostra. In an extraordinary statement he admitted Cosa Nostra existed and that he had been part of its Commission – breaking the law of silence oromertà .it [http://www.repubblica.it/online/cronaca/pippocalo/pippocalo/pippocalo.html Il cassiere di Cosa Nostra: "Mi dissocio ma non mi pento"] , La Repubblica, September 25, 2001]However, he did not become a
pentito – government witness – and refused to testify against his fellow mafiosi. Calò said he was prepared to face his own responsibility but would not name others. “I am a mafioso but I don’t want to be accused of bloodbaths,” he said.it [http://www.repubblica.it/online/cronaca/pippocalo/pippocalo/pippocalo.html Il cassiere di Cosa Nostra: "Mi dissocio ma non mi pento"] , La Repubblica, September 25, 2001]References
* Stille, Alexander (1995). "Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic", New York: Vintage ISBN 009 9594919
* Dickie, John (2004). "Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia", London: Coronet ISBN 0-340-82435-2See also
*
Mani pulite (Italian for "clean hands"), a nationwide Italian police investigation intopolitical corruption in the 1990s
*Banco Ambrosiano scandal, which led toRoberto Calvi 's 1982 murder
*Licio Gelli , headmaster ofPropaganda Due , the masonic lodge involved inGladio 's "strategy of tension " (Gladio was the Italian branch of theNATO "stay-behind " secret paramilitary organization, involved in various acts of domestic terror, starting with the 1969Piazza Fontana bombing )External links
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEVXwzF2BCc Buscetta e la Mafia sfila al Maxiprocesso di Palermo] You Tube
* [http://gangstersinc.tripod.com/Calo.html Biography at Gangsters Inc.]
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