PALERMO (ITALPRESS) – “We are here to focus on the commitment that the state and institutions at every level are carrying out to ensure the security of this territory, to identify together the most effective solutions to give answers to the problems that are most urgent for citizens of Palermo.” President Giorgia Meloni said this, speaking at an extraordinary meeting of the Provincial Committee for Public Order and Security, at the Prefecture of Palermo.
“I chose to be there today because the security of citizens is built above all by dialogue with the territories and with those who on those territories guarantee security. I am here to reiterate once again that this city and its citizens are at the centre of government and its institutions.”.
“Palermo is a place where the state has demonstrated more perhaps than in any other place its ability to not be willing to back when the really difficult moments arrived, not to be willing to back in the face of mafia violence – Meloni emphasized. It is a message that we gather and try to relaunch and reiterate with the same determination even today, clearly not only celebrating our heroes of the past, but also trying to understand how we can do our part to be up to that example, of that teaching.”.
“We know well what has happened recently in some areas of this city, especially in the north-west suburbs, in several municipalities of the coastline, from Femmine Island to Capaci and Carini: the kalashnikov gusts, intimidation to traders and entrepreneurs, the fuel tanks burned to terrify citizens are images we hadn’t seen for a long time but we have no intention to tolerate. I am here also and above all to say thank you, because the state has not remained to look. Just in the past hours the cc of the provincial command of Palermo, to which goes our thanks, have performed the arrest of 22 people, then become 24, considered protagonists of the criminal escalation of the last months. It is a signal that I consider unequivocal, especially beautiful because it arrives this week. Whoever thinks of bringing Palermo back, who thinks of terrorizing those who work honestly, will find in front of him a determined state, reacting and striking. Of this I must obviously thank the prosecutor De Lucia, all the magistrates, the polluters, all the forces of the order, so this table in its complexity. And I want to remind you that next to these investigations the State has acted immediately on the territory. The prefect Mariani, whom I thank, has arranged the establishment of red areas in Sferracavallo and Zen, the neighborhoods that are most exposed to these phenomena,” he added.
“The minister Piantedosi has assigned 90 extra agents for the control of the territory. They are units that are added to the 850 already destined to this area from 2025 to today. The Interior Ministry, together with the Pisani Prefect, has identified additional resources for the recruitment of local police personnel for the extraordinary activity of control – he added -. To the 9 million euros that have already been assigned to Palermo and to the Municipalities of the metropolitan area will add another 6 and are clearly very valuable resources that serve to finance the projects of urban security and strengthening the presidi on the territory. In particular, it will begin shortly the experimentation of video surveillance systems for investigative purposes in areas that are more at risk of the city. Cameras that are managed directly by the mobile team to prevent and suppress crimes.”.
For the premier they are “important signs of a capacity especially that there is to make team play, of a real and constant attention that from my point of view it is still strengthened and that we are here to reason for how to strengthen together, also to continue to ensure the maximum support to the victims of the intimidation of the racket. The message must be clear: the state is there, it does not leave only people for good, those that every day fill the sleeves to create wealth and work in this territory”.
“I think we can do more and we can do even better. Then I think that the objective of this committee should be to fix itself as an objective to find in the shortest possible operational solutions to start an extraordinary operation of control and fixed control of the territory, starting from the districts that are more at risk – Meloni emphasized. I am thinking above all of the Zen, the presidio that can be guaranteed obviously with the police forces but not only, perhaps also with the involvement of the Army in joint operations. If necessary we can also intervene on the norms that today discipline Strade Sicure, and I think that this is the next step that we can do to strengthen even more an important work that has been done and that it is necessary to destroy the escalation of violence that a part of this territory is living”.
“From 2023 to now, 118 high-impact operations have been carried out in Palermo, including railway stations. More than 3,000 police units have been deployed, controlled by more than 14,000 people. With the red zones about 45,000 people were checked, of which almost 3,500 foreigners, removing the subjects that were considered dangerous with police records. In the last 4 years in the metropolitan city of Palermo the goods confiscated to the mafia that have been returned to the community and transferred to the local authorities have grown almost 60%: 128 confiscated properties that were mainly intended for housing emergency. The richness torn to the mafia comes back in the availability of the community to help the problems of families, especially those more fragile,” he added.
“The state here has not lowered the guard, continues to strike organized crime in its economic interests, in its structures in its capacity to intimidate. We must insist on evolving, also because clearly the mafias change, invest in the legal economy, exploit the new technologies, seek new spaces of infiltration, new tools to condition the productive fabric, and for this reason it is essential also to continue to strengthen the investigative tools and support the work of all the institutions that are engaged on this front – it has emphasized again -. So I am here above all to say thanks to you and with you to give a clear message: in Palermo the State is there and wants to be increasingly present with determination, with humility but with constancy and determination without ever retracing, because this is the most serious way we know to honor the memory of those who gave life for freedom, for legality, in territories like this”.
L’ARRIVO IN PREFETTURA / VIDEO
LA CERIMONIA DI SVELAMENTO DELLA CROMA DI FALCONE
“34 years ago Italy was forced to deal with something scary, but also an evil that many had pretended not to see. Capaci’s massacre changes everything from that moment on, no one has ever been able to make excuses. The Italians then understood that everyone had his responsibility in this battle.” This was said by Premier Giorgia Meloni, in his intervention at the “Museo del Presente – Falcone and Borsellino”, in Palermo, during the ceremony for the disvelamento of the Fiat Croma on which, on 23 May 1992, Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and the driver Giuseppe Costanza, then survived the massacre in which the men of the escort of the State Police died, Rocco Dicillo, Antonio Schinza.
“I had never seen the Chroma where John died. The 34 years since that date, on May 23, 1992, I fell all over me, leaving me a pain dilaniating” said Maria Falcone. Maria Falcone thanked Premier Meloni “for understanding the importance of such a thing”. “This is a place of permanent education to legality, and before that machine you have to bow down, think about how much pain he created but also the reaction of society and institutions against the mafia, a struggle to the mafia worthy of a rule of law, as John said,” he added.
LA CROMA DI FALCONE TRASFERITA AL MUSEO DEL PRESENTE / VIDEO
MELONI RENDE OMAGGIO ALLE VITTIME DELLA STRAGE DI CAPACI
Just before reaching the Prefecture, President Meloni laid a bouquet of flowers to pay tribute to the stele dedicated to Giovanni Falcone, Francesca Morvillo and the men of the escort, along the A29 motorway, near Capaci, in the site of the massacre of 23 May 1992.
– Photo Palazzo Chigi –
(ITALPRESS).
