Calay News
Gaspare Spatuzza, a hitman responsible for several Mafia attacks, including the murder of a child who was dissolved in acid, has been granted full release after serving 26 years in prison. Spatuzza received multiple life sentences but later cooperated with authorities by providing information about the Sicilian Mafia. Now 58 years old, he will enjoy complete freedom, subject to some restrictions, such as not associating with people with criminal records and not leaving his hometown without permission. Spatuzza was previously under house arrest due to the benefits of his judicial cooperation.
He has completed his life sentences for the bombs that exploded in Rome, Florence, and Milan during the summer of 1993, killing ten people and injuring over 50. He was also convicted for the murder of Father Pino Puglisi on September 15, 1993, and sentenced to 12 years in prison for the kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy, the son of an informant named Santino Di Matteo, who was held captive for over two years and later killed and dissolved in acid.
Spatuzza inherited the leadership of the Brancaccio clan in Palermo on the recommendation of Cosa Nostra leaders, including the “boss of bosses,” Matteo Messina Denaro, who was recently arrested after 30 years on the run. Spatuzza was arrested in July 1997 and spent 11 years in isolation until he decided to cooperate with magistrates in 2008, confessing to his role in the attacks he had already been convicted for and revealing his involvement in the murders of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, their wives, and five bodyguards in 1992.
As a collaborator with the justice system, Spatuzza also accused Silvio Berlusconi and his right-hand man, Marcello Dell’Utri, of making agreements with the Graviano brothers, heads of one of the most powerful Mafia families in Sicily, at the time of the birth of Forza Italia. Some of his statements during the more than 15 trials he testified in were controversial.
