"I was 17 then and I couldn't grasp the beauty of this place. I can grasp it now." Lucia Borsellino returned to Asinara after 40 years, since August 1985, when judges Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, and Paolo Borsellino, along with their families, were catapulted to the island. Here they wrote one of the most important pages in Italian history: the ruling of the Maxi Trial against Cosa Nostra. This chapter in the fight against the Mafia was remembered during the two-day event titled "Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino, and Francesca Morvillo: Justice is Democracy," organized by the Sardinian Sectional Executive Council, in collaboration with the Legality Commission of the Central Steering Committee of the National Association of Magistrates, the Asinara National Park - Marine Protected Area, the Region of Sardinia, and the Municipality of Porto Torres.
Lucia and Manfredi Borsellino accepted the invitation of the Sardinian branch of the National Association of Magistrates, chaired by Andrea Vacca. "Coming to Asinara, following Manfredi's exhortation, was like a moment of healing for one of the many emotional wounds that life has inflicted upon us, a moment that has finally been fulfilled. It took forty years, because sometimes when you experience very strong emotions, you experience a sort of general disorientation. Thirty-three years in limbo after separating from my father, during which I felt out of place, as if a large part of me had always been left behind. Today I have recovered that part of myself that was left here."
These meaningful words moved those present, including illustrious figures and key figures of the time, as well as Sardinian and Palermo magistrates, who paid tribute to two statesmen. She was 17 in the summer of 1985, when the two judges were transferred to the island for security reasons. "I began to show signs of fatigue and weight loss, and my father decided to take a further risk, taking me to Palermo for a medical examination. He was always willing to take risks just to be close to us and take care of us," Lucia continued, recalling Falcone's kindness and the gentleness of his wife Morvillo. "I want to point out that when the transfer to the island occurred, a tangible risk for my father and Falcone had materialized," he continues, "a demonstration of how the State, when it wants, can save its children and succeeds perfectly. This didn't happen in 1992, when news broke in the same way of a massacre that would target my father after the Capaci massacre that killed Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, and their escort. It was a death foretold, even though my father had expressed his desire to take his family anywhere to save us." His brother Manfredi was just 13 years old at the time, but he hasn't forgotten those who were close to him. On the island, he reunited with Gianmaria Deriu, a former prison officer who, at the time 27, had taken custody of the two families. "Gianmaria is like a brother, the brother I had asked my parents for so many years. He arrived on August 5, 1985, and has never left since. Whenever I can, I join him with my children. I made him a promise to bring my sister Lucia, and I kept it."
Manfredi thanked Andrea Vacca, "a shining example of a magistrate completely disconnected from other generations, who have somewhat damaged the image of the associated judiciary." Among those in attendance were Diego Cavaliero, the prosecutor and friend of Borsellino, and Rino Germanà, the police officer who escaped the 1992 mafia attack, as well as two other survivors of the massacres: Giovanni Paparcuri and Giuseppe Costanza. A tribute plaque was placed in the red house where the two judges once lived. The two-day event was attended by many illustrious names from the Sardinian and Palermo judiciary. Representing the ANM, the meeting included Secretary General Rocco Maruotti, Council member Giuseppe Tango, and the president of the Legality Commission, Gaspare Sturzo. Guests included the Attorney General of Cagliari, Luigi Patronaggio; the Attorney General of Cagliari, Rodolfo Sabelli; Lia Sava, Attorney General at the Palermo Court of Appeal; Fernando Asaro, the Public Prosecutor of Marsala, and Antonio Balsamo, Deputy Prosecutor General of the Court of Cassation, also spoke. Magistrate Pietro Grasso also spoke. Video messages were sent by the Attorney General of the Court of Cassation, Pietro Gaeta, the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, the Public Prosecutor of Palermo, Maurizio De Lucia, and the President of the Court of Palermo, Piergiorgio Morosini.