Pio La Torre

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Tomb of Pio La Torre in Palermo

Pio La Torre (born December 24, 1927 in Palermo , † April 30, 1982 ibid) was a Sicilian trade unionist and politician ( PCI ). From 1972 until his murder by the Mafia he was a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies .

Life

Pio La Torre, born to poor parents, grew up on what was then the outskirts of Palermo. After the Second World War he joined the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL) trade union , where he quickly made a career. La Torre married Giuseppina Zacco, who was also involved with the PCI. They had two sons, one of whom is anti-mafia and environmental activist Franco La Torre .

From 1952 he was secretary (ie chairman) of the CGIL in the province of Palermo and as a representative of the PCI member of the municipal council of Palermo. In 1959 he became general secretary of the CGIL in Sicily. In 1960 La Torre was appointed to the regional central committee of the PCI of Sicily and in 1962 the party elected him its regional secretary. The leader of the Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer , became aware of La Torre and soon afterwards brought him to the Central Committee of the PCI in Rome. In 1972 La Torre was elected to the Italian Parliament.

Very early on, he became aware of the problem that the Cosa Nostra , as the Sicilian Mafia calls itself, posed for Sicily, and La Torre called for energetic measures to combat the Cosa Nostra. In the following years he worked out a law which already made mafia membership a criminal offense; In addition, illegally acquired property should in future be able to be confiscated by the state. In Rome , however, he was unable to assert himself in parliament against the resistance of the ruling Democrazia Cristiana ; this ruled due to the tolerance of the PCI in a minority government. In return, they fulfilled the requirements of the PCI and greatly expanded the welfare state. This "historical compromise" ended in 1979, the PCI began to gradually decline in the following years, and its share of the national elections gradually continued to decline.

La Torre went back to Sicily in 1981 to work again as regional secretary of the Sicilian PCI in Palermo. He heavily criticized the close ties of the local Christian Democrats to the Cosa Nostra, rid his own party of criminal elements and tried to expose the links between politics, Freemasonry and Cosa Nostra. In addition, against the backdrop of the Cold War and NATO's double decision, he opposed the stationing of American cruise missiles on Italian soil.

At this time the Second Great Mafia War was raging in Palermo , which by then had already claimed several hundred deaths. La Torre launched a new initiative to enforce effective anti-Mafia laws. He also publicly complained on several occasions how much Rome ignored Sicily with its mafia problem despite the ongoing violence.

On the morning of April 30, 1982, Pio La Torre and his driver Rosario di Salvo were shot dead by several Mafia killers in their company car. The new "boss of the bosses" Salvatore Riina had given the order; Riina was the leader of the Corleonesians , the Corleone Mafia . 100,000 people attended the funeral of La Torre and di Salvo. His petition for signature against the stationing of the missiles near Comiso was signed by a million people within a few days. The Italian state now sent General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa to Sicily to fight the Cosa Nostra; However, Dalla Chiesa was also killed by the Cosa Nostra on the evening of September 3, 1982, together with his wife and a bodyguard. The law for which La Torre had died has now been passed in a rush in Rome; it would prove to be an extremely effective weapon in the fight against organized crime .

On January 12, 2007, the murderers La Torres and the responsible principals, the bosses Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano , Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò and Bernardo Brusca, were finally convicted for the murder. As members of the Sicilian Mafia Commission , they were believed to be directly responsible for the La Torres murder.

The airport of Comiso wore from 2007 to 2008 the name Pio La Torre. In 2014 the airport was given the name Pio La Torre at a ceremony chaired by Senate President Piero Grasso .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henning Klüver: The godfather - last act , C. Bertelsmann, 2007 ISBN 3-442-15536-3
  2. ↑ Article on ragusanews.com from June 7, 2014
personal data
SURNAME La Torre, Pio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Palermo
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1982
Place of death Palermo