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US mafia explosives expert 'helped Sicilian mob kill judge'
Source: The Guardian
US mafia explosives expert 'helped Sicilian mob kill judge'
Informant says American helped Cosa Nostra assassinate Giovanni Falcone in 1992
Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo
Thu 23 May 2019 13.43 BST Last modified on Thu 23 May 2019 13.46 BST
New York’s powerful Gambino mafia family sent a bomb expert to Sicily to train Cosa Nostra mobsters to assassinate an anti-mafia investigator, a former hitman has claimed.
Maurizio Avola, 56, who is believed to have killed about 80 people before becoming a pentito (informer) told prosecutors in Caltanissetta, Sicily, that an American man came to Palermo in 1992 to help the Sicilian mafia kill the prosecuting magistrate Giovanni Falcone, murdered in a car bomb the same year.
“He was about 40 years old, brown hair, dark eyes, 1.85 metres tall, strong build and dressed very elegantly,” Avola told prosecutors.
Avola said the man was an explosives expert who had worked for the powerful New York gangster boss John Gotti. His job, Avola said, was to train Cosa Nostra’s men to use the 400kg of TNT explosives and a remote-controlled detonator that killed Giovanni Falcone, his wife, Francesca Morvillo, and three police officers on the road from Palermo to the airport on 23 May 1992.
-snip-
Informant says American helped Cosa Nostra assassinate Giovanni Falcone in 1992
Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo
Thu 23 May 2019 13.43 BST Last modified on Thu 23 May 2019 13.46 BST
New York’s powerful Gambino mafia family sent a bomb expert to Sicily to train Cosa Nostra mobsters to assassinate an anti-mafia investigator, a former hitman has claimed.
Maurizio Avola, 56, who is believed to have killed about 80 people before becoming a pentito (informer) told prosecutors in Caltanissetta, Sicily, that an American man came to Palermo in 1992 to help the Sicilian mafia kill the prosecuting magistrate Giovanni Falcone, murdered in a car bomb the same year.
“He was about 40 years old, brown hair, dark eyes, 1.85 metres tall, strong build and dressed very elegantly,” Avola told prosecutors.
Avola said the man was an explosives expert who had worked for the powerful New York gangster boss John Gotti. His job, Avola said, was to train Cosa Nostra’s men to use the 400kg of TNT explosives and a remote-controlled detonator that killed Giovanni Falcone, his wife, Francesca Morvillo, and three police officers on the road from Palermo to the airport on 23 May 1992.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/23/us-mafia-explosives-expert-helped-sicilian-mob-kill-judge