Veteran Anti-Terrorist Jurist in Charge : Italy Reorganizes Anti-Mafia Campaign

The Italian government surrendered Friday to outraged reformers and political pressure and named a veteran anti-terrorist to command a reorganized assault on the Mafia in Sicily.

Reacting with unusual speed, the five-party coalition headed by Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita also promised to reorganize the national police in Sicily and to give greater support to judges hearing Mafia cases.

Domenico Sica, 56, a gray-bearded magistrate who over the past decade has investigated some of the most explosive cases in Italy, was named high commissioner in the fight against the Mafia.

“There isn’t much difference between terrorism and the Mafia and, therefore, although I am aware of the great responsibility that awaits me, I approach my new job with calm and integrity,” Sica said.

He investigated the 1978 kidnap-murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro and tracked down the Red Brigades terrorists who were responsible. Three years later he investigated the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.

In a judicial system in which some judges investigate crimes with the aid of special police units, Sica has also looked into right-wing terrorism and the operations of Propaganda Due, a secret society accused of trying to create a state within a state.

Stung by national criticism and a noisy revolt by prominent Mafia fighters, the government also promised to expand Sica’s investigative and intelligence powers. It said it would allow him great freedom in tracing the syndicate’s financial dealings.

Pressured to Quit

Interior Minister Antonio Gava, who has been pressured to resign by opposition parties, said the detective force in Palermo will be reorganized and the police reinforced by 300 men. “The anti-Mafia forces need wider powers, and better intelligence to learn how dirty money is laundered,” Gava said.

Protests against the De Mita government flared last month when Sicilian judges responsible for convicting more than 300 Mafiosi in December charged that there had been insufficient support from Rome for their efforts to follow up the convictions. As a result, they charged, the Mafia had been given breathing room to rally its forces.

A new generation of activist Sicilian judges, policemen and politicians insists that the Mafia is not a regional but a national problem, and that Rome must confront it directly and vigorously.

Nine Palermo based judges who had created a pool of unprecedented Mafia expertise over the past five years resigned in disgust last week, charging that their work under a new chief magistrate had been obstructed and that they had received inadequate police cooperation. Two top Palermo police officers, angry at criticism of their force, also asked to be relieved.

Complaints by Judge Giovanni Falcone, who conducted the mass trial that sent 19 Mafia leaders to prison for life, sent government politicians scurrying for cover.

President Francesco Cossiga, who heads the judiciary, asked Italy’s overseeing board of magistrates to examine complaints from the Falcone team that the anti-Mafia effort was being diluted.

The board, however, found no fault with the methods of Palermo Chief Judge Antonio Meli, who refused to allow Falcone’s team to continue with its specialized Mafia work. He assigned them cases of all sorts and gave Mafia cases to judges with no experience with organized crime.

In effect, the board ruled against Falcone but at the same time implored him and the other eight to remain at their posts. Falcone left for a month’s vacation, obviously upset and apparently on his way out of Sicily.

Such good news for the Mafia intensified pressures on a nonplussed government that had planned to take August off, as is traditional. Officials hurriedly got together and, after six hours of deliberations, announced the appointment of Sica, a figure as legendary among Italian crime fighters as Falcone.