Sicilian town angered by mafia son's social media post
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Totò Riina, referred to as "the Beast," is said to have ordered around 150 killings, including the death of a 13-year-old child who was dissolved in acid.
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Salvatore Riina during his trial in Palermo, Sicily, in 1993. (AFP)
A son of a reputed Cosa Nostra mafia leader has provoked outrage in the Sicilian town of Corleone after posting a message on social media that was regarded as a "vile attack" on the Italian government.
On Ferragosto, a celebrated national holiday in Italy commemorated on 15 August, "Salvuccio" Giuseppe Salvatore Riina, one of the sons of Salvatore "Totò" Riina, greeted his social media followers a "happy holiday" from "via Scorsone 24, Corleone, Italy".
The Riina family lived at the site for many years, but in 2018, the street was renamed Via Terranova in honor of anti-mafia judge Cesare Terranova, who was killed in 1979 in an attack staged by Corleone mafia lord Luciano Liggio.
The interior ministry officials who were in charge of Corleone, as shown in The Godfather book and film trilogy, authorized the name change when the town government was dissolved owing to mafia involvement.
Walter Rà, Corleone's mayor elected in June, called the act "cowardly" while emphasizing that the town had moved on from its terrible past and would not be intimidated. "We won't allow it," he told Italian media. "We have turned the page here, nobody will make us go backward."
Salvuccio Riina later edited the post to remove the reference to "via Scorsone".
Totò Riina, referred to as "the Beast," is said to have ordered around 150 killings, including the death of a 13-year-old child who was dissolved in acid. He also ordered the killings of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. Riina died in 2017 while imprisoned.
Salvuccio, his third son, returned to Corleone in 2023 after serving nearly nine years in jail for mafia membership, money laundering, and extortion, and then spent time in Veneto and Abruzzo under a social services plan. Corleone's prior government sought to remove him in order to safeguard the town's image.
The town's leaders have made it clear they "firmly distance" themselves from such comments and "condemn such bravado, which sounds like a vile attack against the state and institutions."
According to them, his utterances "accentuate a negative and distorted vision of Corleone, tarnishing the efforts that are made every day by the community to free itself from a reputation linked to mafia and crime."
Salvuccio Riina in 2016 authored the contentious book Riina Family Life, which many bookstores refused to sell.
Totò Riina had three children: Maria Concetta, Giovanni Francesco, and his youngest, Lucia. Giovanni Riina, a Cosa Nostra mafioso, received a life sentence in 1996. Lucia Riina established Corleone, a restaurant near Paris' Arc de Triomphe, in 2019, however, it closed a year later.
