1. Gaspare Spatuzza was born on 8 April 1964 and is a Sicilian mafioso from the Brancaccio quarter in Palermo.
15 Facts About Gaspare Spatuzza
1. 2.
Gaspare Spatuzza was an assassin for the brothers Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano who headed the Mafia family of Brancaccio.
3.
Gaspare Spatuzza was arrested in 1997 and started to cooperate with the judicial authorities in 2008.
4.
Gaspare Spatuzza confessed the murder of the parish priest, Father Pino Puglisi, on 15 September 1993.
5.
At the trial, Gaspare Spatuzza had asked Di Matteo's family for forgiveness.
6.
In 2012, Gaspare Spatuzza was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in the murder.
7.
In June 1998, Gaspare Spatuzza received a life sentence for the 1993 Via dei Georgofili bombing in Florence, the Via Palestro massacre in Milan, and in the churches of St John Lateran and San Giorgio in Velabro in Rome, which left 10 people dead and 93 injured, as well as damage to centres of cultural heritage like the Uffizi Gallery.
8.
In October 2008, it became known that Gaspare Spatuzza had turned into a witness for the prosecution four months earlier after spending 11 years in jail under the Article 41-bis prison regime.
9.
Gaspare Spatuzza said he had become religious in prison; facing "a choice between God and the Cosa Nostra", he chose to cooperate and tell the truth.
10.
Gaspare Spatuzza admitted he had stolen the Fiat 126 used for the car bomb that killed Borsellino in the Via D'Amelio bombing in Palermo on 19 July 1992.
11.
Gaspare Spatuzza's admission contradicted the declarations of a thug with loose Mafia associations who had confessed to stealing the car.
12.
Gaspare Spatuzza's declaration led to the re-opening of the trial on Borsellino's murder, which was concluded in 2003.
13.
Gaspare Spatuzza said Graviano disclosed the information to him during a conversation in a bar Graviano owned in the upscale Via Veneto district of the Italian capital Rome.
14.
On 4 December 2009, Gaspare Spatuzza repeated his accusations in court at the appeal hearing against Dell'Utri, who was sentenced to 9 years in 2004, for collusion with the Mafia.
15.
Gaspare Spatuzza said that he had never met Dell'Utri directly or indirectly.