Maxi Trial

The Maxi Trial (Italian: Maxiprocesso) was a criminal trial against the Sicilian Mafia that took place in Palermo in Sicily. It started on 10 February 1986 and lasted until 30 January 1992. The trial was held in a bunker-courthouse specially constructed for this purpose inside the walls of the prison of Palermo.

Sicilian prosecutors indicted 475 mafiosi for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimonies given as evidence from former Mafia bosses turned informants, known as pentiti, in particular Tommaso Buscetta and Salvatore Contorno. Most were convicted to life imprisonment and, to the surprise of many, the convictions were upheld in January 1992, after the final stage of appeal. The importance of the trial was that the existence of Cosa Nostra was finally judicially confirmed.

It's considered to be the most important trial against Sicilian Mafia and the biggest trial ever held in the world.

The existence and crimes of the Mafia had been denied or merely downplayed by many people in authority for decades, despite proof of its criminal activities dating back to the 19th century. This can be attributed in part to three particular methods used by the Mafia to provide an environment akin to near immunity—paying off key people, killing real or perceived leaks in their own organization, and threatening or even killing key people (judges, lawyers, witnesses, politicians) were used successfully to keep many prosecution efforts at bay. In fact it was only in 1980 that it was first seriously suggested that being a member of the Mafia should be a specific criminal offence by Communist politician Pio La Torre. The law only came into effect two years later—after La Torre had been gunned down for making that very suggestion.

During the early 1980s, the Second Mafia War had raged as Corleonesi boss Salvatore Riina devastated other Mafia Families, resulting in hundreds of murders, including several high-profile authority figures such as Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, head of counter-terrorism who had arrested Red Brigades founders in 1974. The increasing public revulsion at the killing spree gave the necessary momentum for magistrates like Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino to try to deliver a serious blow to the far-reaching criminal organization on the island.

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