Italy: Mafioso’s murder ‘could signal a new mafia war’

Rome, 19 March (AKI) -The murder in Palermo of veteran mafia associate Giovambattista Tusa on Tuesday could herald a new mafia war according to the city’s chief prosecutor.
“This is a homicide that must be taken very seriously, “Francesco Messineo told Adnkronos.
Seventy-one-year-old Tusa’s brother-in-law found him dying outside his apartment with several gunshot wounds to his chest and hip. He expired before reaching hospital.
Over a thousand people were murdered in the mafia wars of the early 1980s, including at least 400 in Palermo and at least 160 mafiosi went missing in a violent power struggle that engulfed the whole of Sicily and radically transformed its mafia.
“It’s early to talk about a new mafia war, but we are certainly scrutinising the situation,” Messineo said, without elaborating.
The 1980s mafia murders also included assassinations of judges, prosecutors, politicians and other authority figures which led to a state crackdown on the mafia, helped by mafia informants embittered at losing friends and relatives.
Tusa was arrested in the late in 1998 and sentenced to four years in jail for mafia association. The retired post office worker helped organised mafia summits including the one that planned the car bomb murder of anti-mafia judge and his security detail on 19 July 1992.