Michele Greco was born in Palermo on May 12, 1924 and rose to lead the Commission of Cosa Nostra, the body of district bosses that decided on the killings of the organisation. He was arrested in 1986, shortly after the Palermo maxi trial opened, and on December 16, 1987 the Palermo Assize Court sentenced him to life imprisonment. Courts later declared him guilty, as a leader of the Commission, of ordering killings between 1979 and 1982. He died in February 2008 in the Lazio region, still serving his sentences.
His case is not a series of separate crimes carried out by his own hand. The courts found that the Commission decided on certain killings, that its members were responsible for them, and that Greco, as a member and a district leader, shared in the decisions. The verdicts that name him are therefore verdicts about ordering and responsibility.
The Ciaculli district on the edge of Palermo is the base the courts associated with him: collaborators told the Terranova trial that he sat on the provincial Commission in 1979 or headed the Ciaculli district, and the court accepted that as the basis of the charge. In 1978 he was named head of the Commission. He was removed from the leadership in 1984.
In the Terranova proceedings he denied that the Commission ever met on the estate he used, saying that police officers, carabinieri and university students had free access to the land. The court found the objection without merit. The judges reasoned that members could have met when no outsiders were present. The court found that a Commission meeting in June or early summer of 1979 decided that Cesare Terranova would be killed in Sicily.
The maxi trial opened on February 10, 1986 in the bunker courtroom at Palermo. Some 475 people were initially charged and 460 remained at the end. Greco was among them. After a deliberation that lasted 35 days from November 11, 1987, the presiding judge read the verdict on December 16, 1987. The court accepted the account of the Commission given by the informant Tommaso Buscetta, which became known as the "Buscetta theorem".
Greco was sentenced to life imprisonment (ergastolo). The prosecutors announced appeals in the cases where the verdicts differed from their requests. The appeal verdict was read on December 10, 1990 by the Palermo Assize Court of Appeal. Of the defendants in the first-instance verdict, 386 remained in the appeal. Greco was identified as head of the Commission, and his life sentence was confirmed. Life sentences across the trial fell from 19 at first instance to 12 on appeal, after the court found part of Buscetta's statements less reliable.
The Court of Cassation gave its final ruling on January 30, 1992 and confirmed the life sentences of the maxi trial. In 1991, between the appeal and the final ruling, Greco and other defendants were released when custody time limits expired. The government then changed the custody rules and the defendants were returned to custody.
Cesare Terranova was killed in Palermo in 1979. The path to trial was long. On October 23, 1989 the investigating judge of Reggio Calabria dismissed the charges against Greco and the others, and the Court of Appeal changed the formula of the dismissal on June 28, 1990. On February 18, 1997 the prosecutor asked for the dismissal to be revoked on the basis of new evidence. On June 20, 1997 the preliminary hearing judge revoked it, relying on statements from the collaborators Gaspare Mutolo and Francesco Di Carlo among other evidence, and on August 11, 1997 sent Greco and others to trial before the first section of the Reggio Calabria Assize Court. Hearings began on January 3, 1998, and a request for the abbreviated procedure was rejected on January 10, 2000.
The first-instance verdict found Greco and six other Commission leaders "colpevoli del reato loro ascritto" (guilty of the offense charged) and sentenced each to life, with joint payment of costs.
On April 12, 1995 the Assize Court of Palermo, first section (judgment no. 9/95), issued its verdict in a case on the killings of Michele Reina, Piersanti Mattarella, and Pio La Torre together with Rosario Di Salvo. Greco is listed as the first defendant and as absent by waiver. The operative part declares him guilty, with the other named Commission leaders, of "omicidio" in the person of each of the victims, and condemns each to life imprisonment with two years of daytime isolation, perpetual interdiction from public office and liability to the civil parties. Michele Reina was killed in Palermo on March 9, 1979, Piersanti Mattarella on January 6, 1980, and Pio La Torre and Rosario Di Salvo on April 30, 1982. The outcome of any appeal is not on record.
Rocco Chinnici was killed in Palermo on July 29, 1983. Greco was tried several times on the charge connected with the killing, and the outcome was an acquittal. On July 24, 1984 the Assize Court of Caltanissetta sentenced him to life as an alleged instigator, while he was a fugitive, and the Assize Court of Appeal there confirmed the sentence on June 14, 1985. The Court of Cassation annulled the ruling on June 3, 1986 and sent the case to the Assize Court of Appeal of Catania, which again imposed life.
On February 18, 1988 the Court of Cassation, in joint sections, annulled that ruling on the charge connected with the killing and sent the case to Messina. On December 21, 1988 the Assize Court of Appeal of Messina acquitted Greco of that charge, convicted him of mafia association and sentenced him to 12 years. The Court of Cassation confirmed the Messina ruling on January 9, 1990 and sent the case to Reggio Calabria to redefine the penalties, which the Assize Court of Appeal there did on November 6, 1990. The Court of Cassation rejected the appeals and confirmed that ruling on June 26, 1991. Greco is not among those sentenced to life by the Assize Court of Caltanissetta on April 14, 2000.
Greco died in February 2008 in the Lazio region, aged 83. He had received several life sentences and other terms of 30 years as the instigator of several killings. In 2004 the special detention regime applied to him had been revoked, and in December 2007 a surveillance court in Rome rejected a request to defer his sentence.
In the Italian system a serious murder case is tried by the Assize Court (Corte d'assise), with an Assize Court of Appeal above it and the Court of Cassation as the final level, which decides on points of law. The Court of Cassation can annul a ruling and send the case to another appeal court, as happened three times in the Chinnici case.
The maxi trial rested on the idea that the Commission was responsible for killings ordered by its members. Greco's convictions followed from that reasoning, not from an allegation that he personally took part in the killings.
The Terranova verdict and the 1995 verdict are first-instance findings; their later stages have not been confirmed. In the Chinnici case he was sentenced to life at three earlier stages before the final acquittal on the charge connected with the killing, and that acquittal is the outcome that stands.
May 12, 1924: Born in Palermo.
1978: Named head of the Commission.
March 9, 1979: Michele Reina killed in Palermo.
1979: Cesare Terranova killed in Palermo.
January 6, 1980: Piersanti Mattarella killed in Palermo.
April 30, 1982: Pio La Torre and Rosario Di Salvo killed in Palermo.
July 29, 1983: Rocco Chinnici killed in Palermo.
1984: Removed from the leadership of the Commission.
February 10, 1986: Maxi trial opens; Greco arrested in 1986.
December 16, 1987: Maxi trial verdict; life imprisonment.
December 21, 1988: Messina Assize Court of Appeal acquits him on the Chinnici charge.
December 10, 1990: Maxi trial appeal verdict; life sentence confirmed.
January 30, 1992: Court of Cassation confirms the maxi-trial life sentences.
April 12, 1995: Palermo Assize Court declares him guilty of the Reina, Mattarella, La Torre and Di Salvo killings; life.
February 2008: Dies in the Lazio region.