LIRIO ABBATE E MAFIA CAPITALE
Giovedì 16 luglio, proseguendo nel lavoro svolto nell’ambito del Premio giornalistico “Arrigo Benedetti”, sarà ospite alle ore 21,30 Lirio Abbate, giornalista siciliano de L’Espresso, che a Palermo, per l’agenzia di stampa Ansa, ha seguito i principali processi legati alla mafia subendo minacce per il suo lavoro. Da anni, infatti, vive sotto scorta. -- source
Abbate presenterà il libro “I Re di Roma. Destra e sinistra agli ordini di Mafia Capitale” scritto con Marco Lillo (Chiarelettere).
“Una storia vera, ma così incredibile che sembra creata da un’immaginazione diabolica. Un ex terrorista finito in carcere più volte, legato alla Banda della Magliana e addestratosi in Libano durante la guerra civile. Da anni gira per Roma tranquillo con una benda sull’occhio perso durante una sparatoria. Lo chiamano ‘il cecato’. È lui che governa politici di destra e di sinistra. Per i magistrati è il capo, Massimo Carminati.”
Lirio Abbate is an Italian journalist and a correspondent in Sicily for the state news agency ANSA and L’Espresso newspaper.
He was born in Castelbuono in the province of Palermo and started his journalistic career in 1990 at the Giornale di Sicilia until 1997 when he moved to ANSA. In 1998 he also started to work for La Stampa. In 2003 he was elected journalist of the year by Unione Nazionale Cronisti (Unci). He reported on the Mafia and clandestine immigration on the Sicilian coast. He was the only journalist present at the arrest in April 2006 of the “boss of bosses” of Cosa Nostra, Bernardo Provenzano, who was jailed after 43 years on the run.
Abbate angered the Mafia with a book published in 2007 with colleague Peter Gomez called I Complici (“The Accomplices”) about links between politicians and Bernardo Provenzano. When over police wiretaps heard mafiosi were heard discussing how to silence Abbate in revenge for his news reports and book, police decided to give him and his wife a police escort.
On the night of September 2, 2007, his police bodyguards surprised two men placing a home-made bomb under his car. This murder attempt came a few days after he had returned to Palermo and after several months of threats following the publication of his book.
Mafia boss Leoluca Bagarella threatened him publicly during a trial in October 2007. “I have been more worried since this case,” said Abbate. “Bagarella sent a message to his accomplices giving my name in open court. He has been in prison since 1995 and since I work for a news agency, my articles are not by-lined. How did he know that it was me who had written any particular article?”
