Luciano Leggio, whose name is also written Liggio, was born in Corleone, a town south of Palermo, and led the local Mafia group through the 1950s and 1960s. His record in the courts is one of repeated trials and mostly acquittals. A first-instance court in Bari cleared him and dozens of co-defendants of nine murders and of association in June 1969. He was tried in the case of Placido Rizzotto, killed in 1948, and acquitted for insufficient evidence. His one final murder conviction came on December 23, 1970, when the Corte di Assise di Appello di Bari sentenced him to life imprisonment for the double murder of Michele Navarra and Giovanni Russo, killed in Corleone on August 2, 1958. By then he was a fugitive. He was arrested in Milan on May 16, 1974 and died in custody on November 15, 1993.
Leggio grew up in Corleone. The spelling Liggio, which became the usual one in Italy, is said to have come from an officer's error when his name was first written down. Before his twentieth birthday his record also included theft.
In the 1940s he worked as a field guard in the Corleone countryside and became the right-hand man of Michele Navarra, who headed the town's Mafia group at the time. He was accused in two killings of those years and was never convicted in either. In the first trial in which he appeared, the witnesses withdrew their statements and he was acquitted. A hearing he failed to attend in 1948 made him a fugitive, and he stayed out of reach until 1964.
On March 10, 1948 Placido Rizzotto, 34, was killed in Corleone. Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, then a young Carabinieri officer, led the inquiry. He sent a report to the Palermo prosecutor in December 1949 and a second report in May 1950 that set out the evidence against Leggio. The case went before the judges with Leggio and two other men as defendants. All three were acquitted of the murder charge, for insufficient evidence.
Leggio was never convicted of the killing of Rizzotto.
By the late 1950s the Corleone group was divided between followers of Navarra and Leggio's following, and the dispute turned on control of the town and its countryside. Navarra and Giovanni Russo were killed on August 2, 1958.
The investigation led by Cesare Terranova sent Leggio, among others, to trial for the Navarra killing. The trials were held outside Palermo on the ground of legittima suspicione. They ended in the 1960s with a long series of acquittals, in Catanzaro and in Bari.
Leggio was arrested in Corleone on May 14, 1964. He was later moved to Bitonto, in Puglia.
The Corte d'Assise di Bari, in the proceeding known as the trial of the 64, heard the case against Leggio and the others from Corleone. On June 10, 1969 the court acquitted Leggio and his co-defendants of the nine murders linked to the Corleone conflict. The charge against Leggio was nine murders, and the outcome was an acquittal for lack of evidence.
The verdict drew public criticism, and the court's reasoning was in places hostile to the earlier committal for trial. Leggio moved from Bari to Bitonto. The police of Bari declared him socially dangerous, and an order required him to present himself to the Corleone police.
A precautionary custody order was issued by the Palermo court in November 1969. In November 1969 Leggio disappeared. He was a fugitive when the Corte di Assise di Appello di Bari sentenced him on December 23, 1970 to life imprisonment for the double murder of Navarra and Russo. The Court of Cassation confirmed the sentence, which remained the life sentence for the Navarra murder.
In 1970 the pretore of Corleone had also given Leggio what was later called his first conviction, for breaking the residence obligation imposed on him. That was a minor offense and not a murder charge.
For the next four and a half years Leggio was at large. A hearing of the Antimafia Commission in 1974 concluded that he had been in Milan from about 1971. He was arrested there on May 16, 1974, after four and a half years at large.
After the arrest Leggio was charged in other cases. The most serious was the murder, in 1979, of Cesare Terranova and Lenin Mancuso, in which he was accused of ordering the killings from custody. The investigating judge sent him to trial before the Corte d'Assise di Reggio Calabria on March 31, 1982. The prosecution asked for life imprisonment. In early 1983 the court acquitted him with the classic formula of doubt, acquittal for insufficient evidence, and both the prosecutor and the defendant appealed. At trial he denied the charges. When the Corte d'Assise d'Appello di Reggio Calabria heard the appeal in April 1986, in the secure courtroom at Palermo, he told the court that he already had one life sentence, one sentence of 25 years and one of 6 years. The appeal judgment, numbered 51/86, became final on May 10, 1988.
He was also among the defendants when the Palermo maxi-trial of Cosa Nostra opened in February 1986, and was already serving a life sentence. On October 12, 1989 the supervision court refused his request for semi-liberty.
Leggio died in custody on November 15, 1993.
The Italian courts of the period allowed an acquittal on the formula of doubt, as in the 1983 Reggio Calabria verdict and the Rizzotto case, where the court acquitted for insufficient evidence. Cases could be moved away from Palermo on grounds of legittima suspicione, which is why the Corleone trials of the 1960s were held in Bari and Catanzaro. The Navarra proceedings show how far the outcomes could differ: the same facts produced an acquittal in Bari in June 1969 and a life sentence in the Bari appeal court in December 1970, which the Court of Cassation then confirmed.
The list of crimes attributed to Leggio is longer than the list of crimes of which he was convicted. The Rizzotto killing, the nine murders of the 1969 Bari trial and the Terranova and Mancuso murders all ended in acquittal or with no known conviction. For the Rizzotto case the finding is acquittal for insufficient evidence; for Navarra and Russo it is the 1970 conviction.
Leggio himself denied involvement. At an appeal hearing in April 1978, when he was 53, he said he had not applied for a retrial of the Bari proceedings, and he said he had been acquitted, on the formula that the act did not exist, of a charge connected with his flight in 1969.
1940s: accused in two killings; acquitted at his first trial after witnesses withdrew their statements.
March 10, 1948: Placido Rizzotto, 34, killed in Corleone.
December 1949 and May 1950: reports to the Palermo prosecutor set out the evidence against Leggio; he is later tried with two others and acquitted of the murder charge.
August 2, 1958: Michele Navarra and Giovanni Russo killed in Corleone.
May 14, 1964: Leggio arrested in Corleone.
June 10, 1969: Corte d'Assise di Bari acquits Leggio and others of nine murders.
November 1969: custody order issued by the Palermo court; Leggio becomes a fugitive.
December 23, 1970: Corte di Assise di Appello di Bari sentences him to life imprisonment for the double murder of Navarra and Russo.
May 16, 1974: arrested in Milan.
March 31, 1982: sent to trial before the Corte d'Assise di Reggio Calabria for the 1979 Terranova and Mancuso murders.
Early 1983: acquitted for insufficient evidence at first instance; prosecution and defense appeal.
February 1986: appears among the defendants at the opening of the Palermo maxi-trial.
April 1986: appeal in the Terranova and Mancuso case heard in Reggio Calabria's appeal court.
May 10, 1988: appeal judgment 51/86 becomes final.
October 12, 1989: request for semi-liberty refused.
November 15, 1993: dies in custody.