'Pino' Puglisi, Gian Carlo Caselli and Vittorio Sgarbi

On April 7, 1995, Vittorio Sgarbi, politician, writter and television showman, read a letter on TG5, one of the channels from Mediaset (Berlusconi's empire). This letter was supposed to reveal the the real resposible of the dead of 'Pino' Puglisi. [*]

Giuseppe Puglisi (1937-1993), known as Pino Puglisi, was a priest from Palermo. His belligerance against the mafia lead to his murder, on September 15, 1993. [*]

Giuseppe 'Pino' Puglisi

This letter was supossed to come from one friend of the priest, although Sgarbi didn't give the name of the author:

«Fui più volte contattato da Caselli e dai suoi uomini [...] pretendevano accuse, nomi, circostanze... volevano che denunciassi la mia gente e miei ragazzi... che rivelassi cose apprese in confessione [...]. Caselli disprezza i siciliani, mi vuole obbligare a rinnegare i miei voti e la mia veste, pretende che mi prostituisca a lui. Più che nemico della mafia, è un nemico della Sicilia. Orlando è un mafioso vestito da gesuita [...]. Caselli ha fatto di me consapevolmente un sicuro bersaglio. Avrà raggiunto il suo scopo quando un prete impegnato nel sociale verrà ucciso [...]. Caselli, per aumentare il suo potere, ha avuto la sua vittima illustre.»

Gian Carlo Caselli

This letter accuses of ordering the murder the Director of the Pool Antimafia of Palermo, Gian Carlo Caselli [*]; and Leoluca Orlando [*], politician and lawyer, of being the executor. He was condemned for diffamation.

Vittorio Sgarbi

But which were the reasons to create such a fiarce, to involve an honorable magistrate in the death of one victim, martyr, of the mafia?

Let's say it clearly: Vittorio Sgarbi is a malicious figure. His career in politics has gone from Comunism to the right: "he started his political career in 1990 as mayoral candidate of Pesaro for the Italian Communist Party; he then became city councillor of San Severino Marche running as Italian Socialist Party candidate, being then elected as mayor, his candidacy being supported by the Italian Social Movement and Christian Democracy. In 1992 he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies under the Italian Liberal Party banner, and then chose to join the Italian Radicals. As a candidate for Silvio Berlusconi's "good government" coalition, he campaigned actively in southern Italy during the general elections in 1994. In 1999 he founded his own libertarian movement, I Liberal Sgarbi-I Libertari, and successively joined Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, being part of a centre-right cabinet from 2001 to 2002 as undersecretary for culture. In 2004 he chose to run together with the Italian Republican Party in the European elections. In 2005 he self-declared his candidacy for the L'Unione centre-left primary election, which was however rejected due to his past participation to the Berlusconi cabinet. He then ran unsuccessfully with the Consumers' List, part of the centre-left coalition, in 2006. He later chose to leave the centre-left, and announced his intention to run in the 2006 mayoral election in Milan; he then ruled out his candidacy after reaching an agreement with centre-right candidate Letizia Moratti. Sgarbi consequently served as culture spokesman until April 2008. On June 2008 he successfully ran as mayor of Salemi, a little town in South-Western Sicily, with the support of the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats and the Christian Democracy for the Autonomies, winning the election following the second ballot with over 60% of votes. He later run unsuccessfully as a Movement for Autonomies MEP candidate in the 2009 elections."

He has actively atacked the prosecutors of the mafia:

"As a candidate for Silvio Berlusconi's "good government" coalition, he campaigned actively in southern Italy during the general elections in 1994, denouncing the excessive power of investigative magistrates, the severe article 41-bis prison regime and the damage done to the regional economy by organized crime investigations. He visited Giuseppe Piromalli, a boss of the criminal 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, in prison." [*]