Italy marks 24th anniversary of killing of top anti-mafia judge

Sober commemoration took place in Italy on Tuesday to mark the 24th anniversary of the murder of Paolo Borsellino, a top anti-mafia judge killed by mobsters in 1992.

Major events were held in Palermo, the regional capital of Sicily, where the prosecutor had been born and was killed.

Citizens and public officials gathered for a long-day ceremony in the very street where Borsellino was blown up by a car bomb. Five police officers of his escort lost their life with him.

On Tuesday evening, a traditional torchlight procession followed in the same place.

Italy's police chief Franco Gabrielli led another commemoration at a major barrack where Italy's police escort group is based, along with other public officials and the son of the murdered judge, now a police officer himself.

Other events were held by anti-mafia and civil society groups in several Italian cities.

Indeed, the anniversary of the killing of Paolo Borsellino is a meaningful occasion, and quite deeply felt, across the country.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella stressed in a statement that his murder, and that of the women and men of his escort, "is a severe wound for the Italian democracy."

"Honouring Borsellino means keep fighting his battle. The state and the (Italian) society possess the antibodies to hit and crush all the mafias," Mattarella said.

The legacy of the anti-mafia prosecutor was also praised by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

"Borsellino. His competence. And his police escorts ... Italy is not forgetting," Renzi wrote on his social media account.

The murder of 52-year-old Borsellino in 1992 occurred 57 days after his colleague and fellow anti-mafia judge, Giovanni Falcone, was killed in a similar way on a motorway in Sicily.

The two attacks at the hands of Sicilian "Cosa Nostra" were the most brutal against Italian judiciary, and shocked the country. Their deaths marked a very dark moment in Italy's recent history.

The two judges had introduced new methods in investigating the mafia, and reached crucial results against the Sicilian mob, which was the strongest among Italy's three crime syndicates at the time.

The anti-mafia struggle in the country has made progress since then, and the Italian society seems to have developed a much stronger awareness as well, especially among young generations.

Yet, the mafia's ability to infiltrate legal economy and institutions, and to diversify its businesses, has also strengthened.

Furthermore, the whole truth about instigators and deep reasons behind Borsellino's murder is yet to be reached, both his family and anti-mafia analysts stressed on Tuesday.

"The truth regarding several details of this massacre is still elusive," major anti-mafia reporter Lirio Abbate wrote on L'Espresso weekly magazine.

Three trials have been held so far, and some 47 people were convicted in connection with Borsellino's murder.

The case was reopened, and a fourth trial began in 2009, after fresh revelations of a mafia member. Endit