Vatican judge under investigation for allegedly favoring the mob

ROME – A major fire in Rome on Wednesday caused the closure of a street named for Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, anti-mafia prosecutors in Sicily whose separate assassinations in 1992, one right after the other, made them two of Italy’s most revered martyrs to the cause of fighting organized crime.

As it turns out, Wednesday’s blaze wasn’t the only fire burning that day around the memory of Falcone and Borsellino.

The same day, prosecutors in the Sicilian community of Caltanissetta announced that they’ve placed Giuseppe Pignatone, currently the lead judge for the Vatican’s civil tribunal, under investigation for allegedly favoring the mafia in the closure of a 1992 probe that had been launched by Borsellino shortly after Falcone’s death.

At the time, Pignatone, who took up his Vatican post in October 2019, and who recently presided over the Vatican’s “trial of the century” for various forms of financial crime, was an assistant prosecutor in Palermo. He’s been named in the current probe along with Gioacchino Natoli, who led the prosecutor’s office in Palermo, and Stefano Screpanti, a senior official in Italy’s financial police.

Pignatone has professed his innocence and vowed to cooperate with the investigation. On Wednesday, he appeared at the prosecutor’s office in Caltanissetta for a deposition.

In 1992, Borsellino had opened an investigation of possible links between two reputed Palermo-based mobsters, Antonino Buscemi and Francesco Bonura, and a financial group led by Italian businessman Raul Gardini.

Facing investigations related to Italy’s “clean hands” operations in the early 1990s, Gardini reportedly committed suicide in July 1993, though persistent rumors have suggested that his death may actually have been a mafia assassination made to look like suicide to ensure his silence.

The suggestion behind the 1992 investigation was that the mob bosses and Gardini’s business interests were involved in a conspiracy to rig contracts on behalf of mafia-owned or mafia-linked enterprises.

That investigation was closed by Natoli shortly after it had been launched by Borsellino. Last September, when Italy’s national anti-mafia commission first heard testimony from a lawyer who’s also now the husband of Borsellino’s daughter regarding the closed probe, Natoli defended his actions, insisting that he looked into the complaint but found nothing “penally relevant.”

On July 5, Natoli invoked his right to refuse to respond to the current investigation.

Now 75, Pignatone is considered among the most prominent figures in Italy’s legal establishment. Among other things, he’s long been involved in anti-mafia prosecutions.

After leaving Palermo, he spent four years as the chief prosecutor in Reggio Calabria in southern Italy, where he led a series of anti-mafia cases. In October 2010, an anonymous caller to Italy’s version of 911 announced that a “surprise” was awaiting Pignatone near the headquarters of the local tribunal, which turned out to be a bazooka left as a warning.

In 2012 Pignatone was named the chief prosecutor of Rome. In that capacity, in 2014 he launched the “mafia capitale” case involving charges of collusion between city officials and mobsters, in areas ranging from the administration of welcome centers for immigrants to trash collection, with the scope of siphoning money from the city’s coffers.

In the end, some 40 public officials and alleged mafiosi either in Rome or the surrounding region of Lazio were arrested and charged with various crimes.

Ironically, the lawyer who represented alleged mobster Salvatore Buzzi in the mafia capitale case was Alessandro Diddi, today the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice who led the prosecution in the “trial of the century.”

In diaries published in 2018, Falcone wrote of various conflicts he had with Pignatone and other officials when the two served together in the prosecutor’s office in Palermo. According to some reconstructions, those clashes contributed to Falcone’s transfer in early 1991 from Palermo to Rome to take a position in the Ministry of Justice.

One such disagreement arose in January 1991 when Pignatone met with Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo of Palermo to discuss details of various anti-mafia probes without Falcone’s knowledge.

So far, the Vatican has not issued any comment on the new investigation regarding Pignatone.