Palermo marks 30th anniversary of Paolo Borsellino's murder

Palermo (Italy), Jul 18 (EFE).- (Camera: Álvaro Padilla) Judge Paolo Borsellino, an icon of the anti-mafia fight along with his colleague and friend Giovanni Falcone, was assassinated in Palermo 30 years ago. His niece, Roberta Gatani explains to Efe that her uncle "knew perfectly that he was going to die."

FOOTAGE OF THE CITY OF PALERMO AND SOUNDBITES OF ROBERTA GATANI, NIECE OF ANTI-MAFIA JUDGE PAOLO BORSELLINO:

1.- "And this is terrible, especially for a family member because when you can close the circle, say why it happened, it's not that you feel less alone, but at least you can continue living. So we are waiting, always waiting for something that never comes."

2.- "We will know, do you know when? When all the people who were involved in that massacre in that period have died, and then they can be blamed."

3.- "After the Capaci attack we wondered if they would ever commit another attack so unpleasant, so terrible, but we knew it would happen. The worst thing is that Paolo (Borsellino) also knew it".

4.- "Between May 23 and July 19, during the 57 days that passed between the two massacres, he came to my mother's house, leaned out on the balcony and said: 'They will make me jump in the air here.' Then he turned to us and kept talking. So he knew perfectly well that he was going to die."

5.- "The State that should have watched over his life, for his work - the very important work he was doing - abandoned him to his fate. He died alone".

6.- "Because he had become a danger. He was touching the keys that he shouldn't touch, obviously; he was discovering things that he shouldn't discover, obviously. He was probably discovering that the State, at that historical moment, instead of fighting the mafia, had decided to ally with them. Paolo was a man with an enormous, disproportionate sense of state, and he would never have accepted such a thing".

7.- "Salvatore Borsellino, who is Paolo's little brother, always says that Paolo's real brother was Giovanni (Falcone) because he was linked to him in the most beautiful but also most difficult period of his life. They were both born here: Paolo was born up here, on the first floor; Giovanni was born on the other side of this building. They lived their childhood in these streets, they shared games, and then they met again as adults sharing a very important job."