In this image from 20 June 1997, the arrest of Salvatore Grigoli, then 32 years old, who then began to collaborate with justice (Ansa)
In September 1999, Don Puglisi’s murderer, Salvatore Grigoli, then detained in the Alessandria maximum security prison, spoke for the first and last time about that murder. We reproduce the text.
He suddenly appears in the dim light of the visiting room. He is dressed in black: his sweater, his jeans, his patent leather shoes are black. In a room of a maximum security prison Salvatore Grigoli weighs the words and pronounces them with suffering. He was one of the most ruthless killers of Cosa Nostra: he confessed to 46 murders, he was implicated in the massacres in Florence, in the attacks in Rome, in the one in Parioli against Maurizio Costanzo. And he is the perpetrator of the assassination that changed his life, that of Don Pino Puglisi, the parish priest of Palermo killed on 15 September six years ago in front of his house. A murder which, he says, “immediately seemed like a curse to us, because from then on everything started to go wrong”. The following is the raw testimony of a 36-year-old man who decided to collaborate with justice after his arrest two years ago. And who declares his repentance.
–When did you first hear the name Puglisi?
“When they told me he was going to die, a couple of days before they killed him.”
-Why was that order given?
«There was the belief that the Our Father Center, which he created, was a den of police infiltrators. Then it turned out that wasn’t true. But first of all because in his sermons, at mass, he spoke against the mafia and people felt his charm, especially young people.”
-Was there any phrase in particular?
«I don’t know if there was a particular phrase, also because they told us things. The Gravianos (brothers Filippo and Giuseppe, Brancaccio bosses, accused of being the instigators, ed) didn’t go to his masses. They were things that were told to him. But Cosa Nostra knew everything, even that it continued to go to the Prefecture and the Municipality to ask for the middle school and the recovery of the basements in Via Hazon, which it wanted to requisition, the Inter-condominium Committee, the sermons. There were people close to Don Pino who went to church and then came to tell us stories.”
-Before the murder there were your intimidations: the fire at the doors of the Committee members’ homes, the threats, the beating of a boy. Was Puglisi aware of the risks?
«He certainly understood where the message was coming from. We carried out these attacks to distance Don Pino and the people who supported him from Brancaccio. In fact, a couple left. But Puglisi continued to do what he had always done, speak out against the mafia…”.
-An announced crime.
«Yes, also because he was left alone. In my opinion, he could have been saved. If the state had protected him, for example. And so what happened happened.”
-And you arrived at that evening.
«We spotted him in a telephone booth while we were in the car. We went to get the weapon. It was my turn. I was the one who shot.”
-Was he nervous, wary?
“No. It was calm. We found out later that it was his birthday. Spatuzza (a member of the commando who killed him, ed.) took his bag away and told him: father, this is a robbery. He replied: I expected it. He said it with a smile. A smile that has remained imprinted on me.”
-The smile of a saint?
«I have no experience of saints. What I can say is that there was a kind of light in that smile. A smile that had given me an immediate boost. I can’t explain it: I had already killed several, but I had never experienced anything like this. I always remember that smile, even if I struggle even to keep in mind the faces, the faces of my relatives. That evening I started thinking about it, something had moved.”
-Is it true that he boasted of being Puglisi’s murderer?
«It is absolutely false. I had absolutely nothing to boast about: if Cosa Nostra had been allowed to judge a murder, I would have criticized it.”
-That murder caused a lot of sensation, from the next day. What effect did the following days have on you?
“No effect.”
-And the anti-mafia demonstrations in the streets of Brancaccio, a month later?
«We began to understand that it had not been a useful thing for us. In fact, it had made the situation worse. A kind of own goal. At that point we chose silence. And then the problems began, and among ourselves, we commented on it as a curse.”
-Cosa Nostra respected priests, that was the first post-war murder.
«For Cosa Nostra, the Church was the one that, if there was a fugitive, hid him. Not because she colluded, but because she helped those in need. A neutral territory. Something that has been lacking in recent years.”
-Are you aware of any fugitives hidden by priests?
«No, but it was known in the environment that it had happened in the past».
-And the Church of Puglisi?
«The Church of Puglisi was a different Church».
-Do you remember the Pope’s words in Agrigento against the mafiosi in 1993?
«Vaguely, I was a mafioso then. I was much more touched by a letter published in Sicilian newspaper by some young people who invited me to repent.”
-But what effect did the Pope’s words have in the Cosa Nostra environment?
“There were rumors that the Church was starting to be different.”
-Were the bombs placed in the Lateran for this reason?
“No. It was a whole different story. It is part of a massacre strategy of Cosa Nostra against the institutions.”
-You are accused of a horrible and hateful crime: the kidnapping of the son of the repentant Di Matteo, kidnapped for a long time, killed and then dissolved in acid in retaliation against his father.
«I knew that child well. My goodness, he was a boy full of life… Cosa Nostra betrayed me: they told me we had to keep him for a couple of days and that was it, until his father recanted. And instead… I did things that cannot be justified, but this… this was the reason for my repentance. I couldn’t forgive him.”
-Are there religious mafiosi in Cosa Nostra?
«Ninety percent say they believe in God. One of my co-defendants always said: in the name of God, before we moved to go and kill someone. This thing bothered me: but what help can God give you, who we’re going to kill?, I told him. I heard that Giuseppe Graviano sometimes went to mass. These are people who read the Bible. I read the Bible too, as a fugitive. I liked reading it. I read it then and I read it now as a believer. Because it’s when you’re alone that you start to reflect. Because they inculcate this culture in you: that everything Cosa Nostra does is right.”
-What passages from the Bible do you like to read?
«The life of Christ on earth».
-You say you have converted.
«You see, I have this conviction: that no one will believe me. I am changing, I have to change, but I want the facts to do the talking. I would like to be in Palermo on September 15th for the anniversary of Puglisi’s death. But I don’t like saying these things, because they’ll think I’m a hypocrite. The State should then help those who can change. In this prison, for example, they even denied me a priest. How do you change? To change you need to be helped. For this I am very grateful to Father Mario, an exquisite person.”
–Father Mario Golesano, the parish priest of Brancaccio who replaced Puglisi.
«Yes, I owe him a lot, he never abandoned me. He wrote to me first. I felt an intense emotion upon receiving that letter. He wrote to me about how beautiful it was to feel the fragrant, hard-earned, sweaty bread earned with sacrifices. To feel the joy of my children. The joy that I have taken away from so many children. My regret is that I have taken so many fathers away from their children.”
-A perfume that Brancaccio didn’t smell.
“There, as a child, you begin to feel the charm of men of respect.”
-You also wrote an open letter to the mayor of Palermo, Orlando.
«As a representative of the citizens. I invited those in Cosa Nostra to change, to follow the same path I am taking. I know my co-defendants and I am convinced that some of them could change. Even if it is difficult, because Cosa Nostra instills in you that everything is right, that the State is the number one enemy, that the magistrates are monsters, that Falcone and Borsellino are the number one enemies of Cosa Nostra.”
-Is Cosa Nostra in Palermo still powerful?
«I wouldn’t want it to end up like in Naples, in a group of clans where the first one to wake up shoots. At least Cosa Nostra kept order. Cosa Nostra is on its knees at the moment. And the weapon is that of the collaborators of justice. Anyone who lets them be denigrated is making a big mistake.”
