These words are chilling. Because they are true. The ‘blessed’ country Falcone is talking about is the somewhat superficial country that thinks it can talk about anything and easily dismiss it: if they want to kill you, they kill you. That’s how Falcone becomes isolated, because in the meantime the Cosa Nostra gets stronger and stronger; it fattens up and leaves the dirty work to its envious colleagues, to citizens’ groups, to those who can’t stand what Falcone is doing. In other words, it turns the anti-mafia battle into a societal battle. It then becomes very easy, like going out on a Saturday night, seeing a person on the ground and saying, ‘Oh well, he deserves it, he’s plastered.’ And you don’t feel compelled to help him, because if you do you’ll ruin your Saturday night. Similarly it is easier to say that people like Falcone are out to further their career, that those who do these things do it for money or greater glory. It’s better that way. Because if you believe they are doing the right thing, if you believe they are competent, then you have to follow them. And if you do not, you become complicit. That’s the ‘blessed’ country where, if you don’t die, you’re guilty because you’re alive.

The summer of 1989 is ‘the summer of poison-pens’. Following the distrust shown towards the authenticity of the assassination attempt in Addaura, six anonymous letters from ‘Corvo’, the Crow, addressed to different public figures, are disclosed. One of these letters is to Achille Occhetto, then secretary of the Communist Party, who is put on guard by Falcone’s apparent about-turn. The accusation here is that he sold out: ‘Until today, Giovanni Falcone, to put it mildly, was putting one over on you, making you believe that he’s an anti-mafia white knight whereas he’s shown himself to be a sleazy opportunist. […] In short, Falcone sold out for the position of deputy prosecutor.’

True, Falcone became deputy prosecutor in Palermo, but his life became a living hell. Letters from the ‘Crow’ arrive monthly, in an attempt to ignite even greater anger. At the Prosecutor’s Office he’s kept waiting. When you work in the same office and you have to see your boss, if there’s a collaborative relationship you knock and enter. When you’re made to step aside instead, when you have to have the secretary announce you, you’re kept waiting with the attorneys who may be representing the same people whom you’ve put on trial. Everyone sees you waiting there for hours before the chief prosecutor receives you. And that is meant to convey that the prosecutor is no longer of the same mind, he has other priorities.