Giuseppe Fava

Giuseppe Fava (September 15, 1925 in Palazzolo Acreide – January 5, 1984 in Catania), also known as Pippo, was an Italian writer, investigative journalist, playwright and Antimafia activist who was killed by the Mafia. He was the founder of the I Siciliani monthly magazine. His motto in life was: "is there any use in living if you don't have the courage to fight?"

Born and raised in Palazzolo Acreide in the province of Siracusa in Sicily, he moved to Catania to study law. Graduating in 1947, he soon moved to journalism and became a professional journalist in 1952. He became the editor in chief of Espresso Sera daily newspaper in Catania — the main city on Sicily's east coast — and in 1980 of Il Giornale del Sud, where he formed a team of young journalists that turned the paper into an independent, investigative journal. At the time, not much was known about the owners, but it became clear that some of them had connections with the Mafia. Fava was fired.

In 1983, Fava and his team of independent journalists founded the progressive monthly magazine I Siciliani ("The Sicilians"). The magazine denounced the connections between Mafia, politics and business in Catania. Fava also became part of the movement against the deployment of Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM) by the NATO at Comiso airport in June 1983.

However, it was the investigations into Cosa Nostra and its tentacles in politics and business — in particular those of Sicily's biggest Catania-based construction firms, owned by the four famous Cavalieri del Lavoro,Carmelo Costanzo, Francesco Finocchiaro, Mario Rendo and Gaetano Graci (one of the owners of the newspaper that had sacked Fava) — that would determine Fava's fate. Graci went on regular hunting parties with Nitto Santapaola, the undisputed Mafia boss of Catania, who was on the payroll of Costanzo as well. In the first edition of I Siciliani Fava published an article "I quattro cavalieri dell'apocalisse mafiosa" ("The four horsemen of the Mafia apocalypse"), exposing the corruption and political influence peddling by the four Knights that tied together the local Mafia, high finance and political figures.

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