Commotion marks Mafia trial

Press, 16 April 1986, Page 10

Commotion marks Mafia trial

NZPA-Reuter Messina, Sicily

A new mass trial of alleged Mafia members opened yesterday in scenes of chaos in the specially-built courtroom.

The 260 defendants jeered and whistled at magistrates from behind the bars of cages lining the walls and threw containers of food across the room in protest against

the quality of the lunch they were given during the midday break. The prosecution alleges that the 260 defendants, and 23 others being tried in absentia, are members of four Mafia families controlling the city of Messina, in the north-east-ern tip of Sicily. The defendants, being tried in a court house built on to a prison at a

cost of four billion lire ($4.55 million) face charges including drugtrafficking, controlling prostitution rings, robbery and extortion.

Much of the prosecution case rests on a Mafia turncoat, Giuseppe Insolito, described by the police as the right-hand man of a Mafia family boss, Gaetano Costa. Costa, one of those on

trial, is already serving a 22-year prison sentence for having killed a man in prison by stabbing him 105 times.

Another big Mafia trial, with nearly 470 defendants, has been under way in the Sicilian capital of Palermo since February. A former Mafia boss, Tommaso Buscetta, is the leading witness for the prosecution.