INTERVIEW WITH VINCENZO MUSACCHIO: A LIFE SPENT AGAINST MAFIA
By Lucia De Sanctis
Vincenzo Musacchio, jurist and professor of criminal law in various Italian and foreign universities. Teach criminal law at the High School of Education of the Prime Minister in Rome (2011–2012), since 2018 he is associate of the School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) at Reuters University of Newark (USA), president of Anti-Mafia Observatory and Scientific Director of the “don Peppe Diana” School of Legality in Rome and Molise.
What is your experience about mafias?
I started studying it about thirty years ago, in 1991, and I didn’t know the mafia. I immediately understood that for mafias, money is only a tool to obtain power and reach it with popular consent. I have seen the mafia in Northern Italy and Southern Italy and in both territories the mobsters prey on your rights and show themselves as “respectable” people, always ready to help you. The mafia offers you support, buy your silence and then annihilate you. They use the same system with everyone: politicians, entrepreneurs, public officials.
How have mafias evolved in recent years?
They became “ruling class”. The constant relations with politics have not only not been severed but there are even situations that suggest that the links with politics, the business and professional world continue to be and remain very strong. New centers of power are being created, laundering politicians who have had and continue to have close relationships with organized crime. The continuous metamorphosis of the mafias means that it is not yet possible to know the level of involvement of those people who do not belong to the military wing (the so-called third level). We still know very little about who decides the political-mafia strategies to the point of destabilizing, in some cases, even the foundations of the democratic State.
In the fight against mafias what are the tools that work and which are outdated?
Without doubt, the still necessary tool remains that of “collaborators of justice”. Without it, perhaps today we would still be wondering who the leaders of the various mafia organizations are. On the other hand, the instrument that the mafias fear a lot is that of the seizure and confiscation of illicitly obtained assets. One thing is certain, effective and effective deterrents are needed to fight mafias. Crime must be improper. To do this we need profound reforms in the “justice” sector which must involve criminal law and trial, the judicial and penitentiary system and the prevention and control system
Are mafias just an Italian phenomenon?
Absolutely not! The mafias have internationalized and are present and strong in almost all the countries of the European Union. Mafias have alliances everywhere; they are now a global phenomenon while the bodies that should fight them are uneven and uncoordinated. Our anti-mafia legislation, despite being updated, is today the most modern and should be extended at least in Europe.
When did you choose to disclose legality in schools and why?
When I met Antonino Caponnetto. He touched my heart and with him I went to some schools to talk about the fight against the mafia and about legality until he had to leave for health reasons. I firmly believe in the possibility of fighting the mafias, through the culture of legality, truth and awareness. I have chosen this path for almost thirty years and I hope to continue to follow it for a long time. I could no longer hold back: absurdly I would say that it is like the air I breathe.
Will the State win the battle against mafias one day?
Absolutely yes! If I were not convinced of this, I, first of all, how could I go to schools to talk to young people? Judge Caponnetto always repeated to me, almost to exhaustion, that knowledge, awareness of what we live, the search for truth, are indispensable for making life choices. It stimulated me by reminding me how necessary it was to involve as many people as possible starting from the new generations. His warning was: “We are the State, we never forget it”. He always said to the boys: “Fight the mafias by studying, it is the most powerful weapon you have.” In my opinion, if Italy wants to be successful in the fight against the mafias, it will have to support new social and ethical values; training mechanisms will be necessary which must absolutely represent a full negation of the mafia and corrupt ways in place in our country.