2026 marked the beginning of the 34th year of concealment of the red agenda – by one or more state officials, in service or on leave – on which the magistrate Paolo Borsellino wrote his most confidential notes. Since then, on Sunday 19 July 1992, the day of the massacre in Via D’Amelio in Palermo, we have known nothing about any external instigators who would have entrusted the attack against Borsellino and his escort to the Sicilian mafia. An attack which occurred a few weeks after the other massacre, in Capaci, in which judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and their escort were killed.

In the same way, we know nothing about the superior direction – hidden like the red agenda – which, as the sentences establish, would then guide Arnaldo La Barbera, super policeman at the head of the Falcone-Borsellino investigation group, in the “biggest misdirection in the recent history of Italy”: that is, having sentenced to life imprisonment, as will be discovered after years of unjust detention, people who had nothing to do with the massacre in Via D’Amelio.

Clash between judge and prosecutor on via D’Amelio

In a future editorial, we will see how this story could be linked to our vote on the constitutional referendum for the radical justice reform, desired by Giorgia Meloni’s government, which we will soon have to approve with a yes or reject with a no. Arnaldo La Barbera, promoted several times to become prefect and commander of the Republic, died in 2002, before the misdirection was discovered. And so for age reasons, even the probable concealers of Paolo Borsellino’s agenda and the direction of the misdirection, who have remained in the shadows ever since, are approaching their last day on earth. We therefore do not have much time left to ascertain the truth of the facts and prepare the trial of the alleged culprits. Or at least, try. All of us citizens, even those who lived and suffered through that era, expect the judiciary – which has the constitutional task of ascertaining the truth – and with it the judicial police bodies, to leave no stone unturned.

But this isn’t always the case. The decision, in recent weeks, of the Caltanissetta Prosecutor’s Office – in the investigation into the possible external instigators of the massacre in which Borsellino and his escort were murdered – to oppose the “surprise” investigative measures, therefore extremely confidential and urgent, which were ordered on 19 December 2025, last month, by the judge for preliminary investigations, Graziella Luparello, is surprising.

The neo-fascist track on the Capaci massacre

In fact, the judge rejected, for the second time in a row, the dismissal of the investigation requested by the Prosecutor’s Office: which in turn – instead of complying with the judge’s order – allegedly failed to carry out the surprise actions and appealed to the Supreme Court. The reason for the sensational decision, which in the investigations into the massacres has no precedent in the memory of magistrates and lawyers, is an alleged abnormality in the Court’s decision. Rare formula provided for acts that violate the procedure or the penal code.

It is not known what the judge of Caltanissetta ordered: the documents are covered by secrecy. But we know, from the papers filed so far, that the investigations – for which the Prosecutor’s Office had twice requested the dismissal, not being convinced of the clues – had taken the path of the far fascist right: a presence in Capaci, and probably also behind Via D’Amelio, of famous names of black terrorism as intermediaries between the higher level (political, Masonic?) and Cosa Nostra, in the organization of the two attacks. Something similar, at least in general terms, to what happened during the preparation of the massacre at the Bologna station on 2 August 1980. A turning point in those investigations, which also occurred thanks to the obstinacy of the victims’ families, who had obtained from the judge the continuation of the investigations and the celebration of the trial, opposing the latest requests for dismissal.

Urgent actions suspended: investigations at risk

From what appears from uisjournal.com’s checks, the “surprise” activity ordered by Graziella Luparello “was suspended” by the public prosecutor, due to the presentation of the appeal to the Supreme Court. A suspension, among other things, which goes against the need for extreme urgency found by the judge. Precisely for this reason Salvatore Borsellino (photo above), brother of the murdered magistrate, through his lawyer Fabio Repici (photo below) sent to the prosecutor of Caltanissetta, Salvatore De Luca, and to the national anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, a “warning to the prosecutor to carry out the investigative measures ordered by the investigating judge”, and to the prosecutor general of Caltanissetta, Fabio D’Anna, a “warning to supervise the inertia of the prosecutor”.

“The inert waiting for the possible decision of the Court of Cassation on the appeal of the Caltanissetta Public Prosecutor’s Office – explains Salvatore Borsellino’s lawyer – would cause the deadline, certainly not to be derogated, for completion of the investigations to expire. In our system there is no rule, which as well as being crazy would be unconstitutional, which removes the investigative activity of the public prosecutor from the judicial control carried out by the judge for preliminary investigations, with respect to which the order ordering further investigations is a case school. Therefore there is no possibility, according to the law, for the Public Prosecutor’s Office to omit the carrying out of the further investigations ordered by the judge”.

The warning – i.e. the formal document which warns the ordinary, general and anti-mafia prosecutors’ offices about the obligations of the prosecuting magistrates – concludes by recognizing that “any inaction by the public prosecutor would constitute the criminal offenses referred to in articles 328 and 378 of the penal code”, refusal and omission of official acts and personal aiding and abetting.

Salvatore Borsellino’s battle for the truth

Paolo Borsellino’s sacrifice, and his brother Salvatore’s battle to ensure that all investigations – all of them – are conducted to the end, regardless of who is right on the quibbles between the judge and the Caltanissetta Prosecutor’s Office, deserve our attention. And they call into question the sensitivity of the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, also a magistrate, and of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The photo above portrays the heads of the institutions, from the Prime Minister (first on the left) to the Head of State, Sergio Mattarella. Among them, the case with Paolo Borsellino’s burnt bag, exhibited as a relic in the Chamber on 30 June 2025. A State and a government, which are not afraid of the truth, create the conditions so that all magistrates, judges and prosecutors, operate with equal rights and above all duties. And so that the red agenda is finally exposed in the transparent case of our Justice: with all the unspeakable secrets and the names of those who – until today, after 34 years – continue to hide it.

Read Fabrizio Gatti’s editorials and investigations