Siani, the front page today with Il Mattino: stolen life and the courage to fight for justice

It's like a punch in the stomach to see today the most dramatic first page of the very long history of Il Mattino Republished because it was voted by readers in the context of the historical re-enactment that we have carried out in recent months for the 130th anniversary of the newspaper

But the front page of September 24, 1985 remains an open wound, despite the fact that about 38 years have passed since that evening, when nothing was the same as before in the life of this newspaper Not only because of the seriousness of the news, given that the massacres followed, starting with those of the Mafia

Unfortunately, the tragedies of a country too often helpless in preventing landslides and floods have not been lacking Then came the attack on the Twin Towers and the wars, starting with the one we are experiencing

But that headline on Giancarlo's crime has been our daily nightmare for years, the one that only the arrests and final convictions of murderers and killers have only partially alleviated A sheet of newspaper wet with tears, a piece of paper on which so much has been written and very often speculated

A shoulder and not the opening, the word Camorra appearing only in the eyelet and not in the title Reporter and not journalist, in an attempt - it was said - to protect the masthead because Giancarlo had not been hired, despite the promises made in the months preceding the crime

Conjectures in the most terrible hours of the history of Il Mattino, when some of Giancarlo's young colleagues are unable to write the news article on the murder or the testimonies collected on the spot in Piazza Leonardo al Vomero It turns out to be difficult to type on the keys of the typewriter with eyes red and swollen with tears: «Give me the news, I'll write all the articles», says editor-in-chief Pietro Gargano to some young colleagues on that night of nights, which began around 21 when Eduardo de Filippis, in carrying out the usual black round, collects the terrible news by telephone: «It seems that one of you has been killed in Vomero, a journalist, the name should be Siani»

"We want the truth", the title of the italics written by the director at the time, Pasquale Nonno, criticized for having said that Giancarlo had been recommended to him by a Jesuit friend of his An unfortunate formula considering the moment, but to say that that young journalist had arrived in the editorial office not on the recommendation of some politician or powerful person of the time, as often happened, but by chance

“Why did they kill this boy who was always smiling, who was just starting his career? We've been asking ourselves this since last night Without anger, but with a lot of determination», writes Nonno

In fact, the days of the torre annunziata trail came, those of the arrest and lightning-fast release of Alfonso Agnello, maverick of the Camorra The investigation, also pushed by the newspaper, seemed to lead to a culprit at any cost: the Giuliano clan, even a brothel in via Palizzi which Siani allegedly decided to investigate

And yet Rubolino, Calcavecchia, a crazed coctail of alleged killers and principals punctually exonerated Then came the dark investigative years until the first repentant of the Gionta di Torre Annunziata clan, Salvatore Migliorino, he did not utter the fateful phrase: "I also know about Siani

" The Camorra's white-collar knew little or nothing, but that was enough to reopen the investigations and follow up on that accursed front page of 24 September 1985 with others which told of the work of the prosecutor Armando D'Alterio, the deputy commissioner Bruno Rinaldi and parallel to the judiciary, the Camorra of Torrese and Marano were often investigated, as well as their ties to Totò Riina's mafia Articles and articles by Siani reread in 1993 with different eyes in search of answers, when there were more tools to understand that Giancarlo was not only "a boy who was always smiling" but a courageous man and a careful journalist in search of the truth, the first to understand that the Gionta clan was affiliated with the Corleonesi, the leap in quality of a camorra told by many still as beggar

Siani a forerunner of investigative journalism but also an older brother to the students who three years before his murder had filled the squares of Campania and the entire South to say "no" to organized crime and claim a different future for their lands, asking a turning point that never came to politics as evidenced by the ambushes, the robberies of today and the economic power of the underworld A front page, the one we publish today, which goes alongside that of 25 October 1995: «Siani, the circle closes»

It was the night of the arrests of killers and principals who had remained in the shadows for ten years Il Mattino stopped the presses to exclusively publish the news of the news, pursued with all her strength to honor the truth about the death of a colleague and also to allay torments and feelings of guilt

This was followed by the headline of 15 April 1997: «Case Siani, six life sentences» And in the year 2000 the one who referred to the convictions confirmed in the Cassation, except for the boss Gionta

Fifteen years since 24 September 1985, an infinite time to obtain the judicial truth, while silences, omissions, underestimations and contaminations of the first investigations, which remained on the sidelines of the trials, are in any case part of a collective memory which, year after year, goes strengthened so as not to let the sacrifice of a civil hero, our Giancarlo, fall into oblivion And in the year 2000 the one who referred to the convictions confirmed in the Cassation, except for the boss Gionta