Emanuele Notarbartolo

Emanuele Notarbartolo

Emanuele Notarbartolo , Marchese di San Giovanni (* February 23, 1834 in Palermo , † February 1, 1893 near Trabia ), was an Italian marquis and large landowner whose murder by the Cosa Nostra caused a sensation far beyond Sicily and Italy, because the The murder of him was the first the mafia committed against a member of the upper class .

biography

The Marchese, who came from the prestigious aristocratic family Notarbartolo , was mayor of Palermo for three years from 1873 and was one of the first to fight the Cosa Nostra and corruption in the city administration. He forced the assessor of the grain office, Raffaele Palizzolo , embezzled repay money.

He then became General Director of the Banco di Sicilia (Bank of Sicily) in 1876 , where he continued to take action against corruption and fraud within the board of directors. When his work was ineffective, he gave the responsible ministers in Rome an ultimatum: Either the bank will be reformed and the corrupt members removed from the board, or he will leave the bank. The ministers decided to fire him. From 1890, Notarbartolo was then a private citizen, but continued the fight against the 'honorable organization' and the supervisory board. Among other things, he learned of credit and stock fraud and obtained an investigation from the Treasury.

Since he was considered incorruptible , saw the Cosa Nostra and several politicians, including Raffaele Palizzolo, now a member of parliament for Palermo with ties to the Mafia and the commissioner of the murder, no other option than to liquidate Notarbartolo.

murder

On the morning of February 1, 1893, Notarbartolo rode, armed with a rifle for self-protection , to Sciara , where the nearest train station was. From there he wanted to travel on to Palermo by train. On the train he climbed into an empty first class compartment , where he fell asleep because of the tiring ride. The train made a stop at Termini Imerese station. There the two hit men got on.

After a 13-minute delay, which was probably caused by the perpetrators, the departure signal came at 6:23 p.m. When the train reached a tunnel between Termini Imerese and Trabia, the two men took advantage of the opportune moment - because of the tunnel, the noises of the train echo back from the compartment walls and cover the noises of the perpetrators - and, armed with a stiletto and a dagger , penetrated , entered the compartment of Notarbartolo and attacked the startled man with their weapons. Notarbartolo was stabbed in several stitches, including one in the groin and at least four others that went deep into the chest and killed the Marchese.

When they arrived in Trabia, the murderers hid in Notarbartolo's compartment and threw the corpse out of the train window after the journey continued at a bridge that spanned a river, in the hope that it would fall into the river and be washed away. However, the body hit the bridge railing, remained lying on the tracks and was later found and identified.

Court hearing

On November 11, 1899, a trial in the Milan jury began after years of delay and sabotage of the investigation. It was thanks to Leopoldo Notarbartolo , the murdered man's son, who used the family fortune to investigate the crime, that a trial at all came about .

At the beginning only the conductor and the brakeman were charged, but not Raffaele Palizzolo, who was heavily incriminated by Leopoldo Notarbartolo during his testimony before the court on November 16. His political immunity was lifted, but an investigation pause has been set.

It was not until September 1901 that the proceedings against Palizzolo were resumed in the Palazzo Baciocchi in Bologna . The trial lasted eleven months (ending July 30, 1902); there were several serious riots in the courtroom. In the end, the jury pronounced Palizzolo guilty.

However, the judgment of the court was declared invalid by the Court of Cassation in Rome for formal reasons and on July 23, 1904 Raffaele Palizzolo was finally acquitted.

literature

• Salvatore Lupo:  Notarbartolo di San Giovanni, Emanuele. In: Raffaele Romanelli (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 78:  Natta – Nurra. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2013.
• Mathias Mesenhöller: The Honorable Society . In: GEO Epoche - Mafia - The History of Organized Crime . No. 48 . Gruner & Jahr, 2011, ISBN 978-3-652-00029-1 , ISSN  1861-6097 , p. 20-31 .