5 arrests. There is also a parliamentary collaborator

16.00 – "I didn't like how he worked when I was secretary of the Italian Radicals and he was a member of the movement. Then the relationship broke off when he joined the national committee of the Italian Radicals and I in the Radical Party." This was stated by Adnkronos Rita Bernardini, a member of the General Council of the Radical Party regarding the arrest of Antonello Nicosia, assistant to parliamentary Pina Occhionero of Italy, a stranger to the investigation, along with four other people, on charges of having conveyed messages outside prisons.

"It seemed more like an exalted person – adds Bernardini – I didn't like it and we had some differences about how the visits to the prison should be carried out".

"It did not operate in the name and on behalf of the Radical party. Then if it referred to other 'Radicals', I do not know. We do not know it." Thus MaurizioTurco, secretary of the Radical party, questioned by the Chief Executive of Antonello Nicosia, the parliamentary assistant of the deputy of Italy Viva Giuseppina Occhionero, accused of being intermediary of the prison on behalf of Matteo Messina Denaro. "Even if he were a member of the party, this counts for nothing, because he can subscribe to anything at the party. What is certain is that what he is accused of did not do so on behalf of the party. We do not even know this human rights observer who says to preside, "adds Turco.

10.50 – Antonello Nicosia, 48, member of the Italian Radicals, was arrested on charges of having acted as an intermediary between the bosses in prison and the clans. For years he has been engaged in battles for the rights of prisoners.

But according to the prosecution, he would take messages and orders outside. While in the car with a national member of the Radicals, near the airport "Falcone and Borsellino", Nicosia said: "At the airport we need to change the name. But why do we have to explain who they are, why do we always have to mix the same shit? "For Nicosia, then, Falcone was the victim of an" accident at work ".

And again: "That one was not even a magistrate. He already had a political office."

07.45 – Military of the Guardia di Finanza of Palermo and Sciacca and Carabinieri of the R.O.S. and the Provincial Command of Agrigento, in the early hours of the dawn, have implemented a detention order issued by the Public Prosecutor of Palermo – District Anti-Mafia Directorate against nr. 5 subjects, considered belonging or in any case contiguous to the family mafia of Sciacca (AG).

Dozens of searches are also underway throughout the territory of Sciacca, where more than 100 financiers and Carabinieri are employed, supported by aerial vehicles and canine units, which cover homes, offices, companies and shops in the availability of the suspects.

The complex investigations have shown that the five detainees, although at a time of absolute difficulty in the Cossack saccense, have continued to reiterate the systematic forms of territorial control typical of the mafia phenomenon.

In particular, the charismatic figure of Accursio DIMINO emerged, said "Matiseddu", already convicted of mafia association – most recently in 2010 – for his role in Cosa Nostra, for which, over time, he was "recruiter of new followers", absolute interpreter in the acquisition of economic activities and public works contracts in the construction and tourism-hotel sector, to assume, in the first decade of the 2000s, the role of head of the family mafia of Sciacca.

DIMINO, in the 90s, on behalf of the Sciacca family, had a central role in the development of ultra-provincial association dynamics, maintaining contacts and conveying "pizzini" with the Corleonese, in particular with Riina Salvatore and Brusca Giovanni.

In those years, investigative activities had, moreover, established contacts with the mafia fugitive Matteo MESSINA DENARO.

Since his release, the relationships maintained by DIMINO with mafia subjects operating in the territory of Sciacca, Castellammare del Golfo (TP) and with some characters considered contiguous to the family Gambino mafia from New York.

With reference to this last articulation of Cosa Nostra, DIMINO related in particular to a subject with whom he had planned a criminal activity that was not subsequently completed due to the sudden murder – which took place in New York on March 13 – by Frank Calì (aka FrankieBoy), a leading exponent of the aforementioned Italian-American mafia family, an event that was immediately communicated in Sicily by the United States.

Among the disputed facts in DIMINO in the provision issued by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of the Public Prosecutor's Office in Palermo there are pressures on local entrepreneurs to allow companies associated with their associates to obtain contracts, the activity of credit recovery for the benefit of subjects linked to honour men, intentions of damage and other criminal activities towards different subjects for extortion purposes.

Some interviews picked up during the investigations would also reveal how the DIMINO represented, in the past, the hardest wing of the family belonging, being part of the c.d. "triumvirate”, The historic firing group operating in the 1990s Sciacca.

06.45 – Military of the Palermo and Sciacca financial police and Carabinieri del Ros and of the provincial command of Agrigento, in the early hours of the dawn, executed a detention order issued by the prosecutor's office of Palermo – Dda against 5 subjects, considered belonging or in any case adjacent to the Sciacca mafia family.

The operation Passepartout gave a blow to the leaders and supporters, even unsuspected, of the Agrigento mafia family.

Dozens of searches are also underway throughout the territory of Sciacca, where more than 100 financiers and carabinieri are employed, supported by aerial vehicles and canine units, which cover homes, offices, companies and shops in the availability of the suspects.

Among the arrested of the operation a parliamentary collaborator, champion of the rights of prisoners: Antonello Nicosia, 48, originally from Sciacca (Agrigento).

Nicosia had accompanied the deputy Pina Occhionero (formerly "Liberi e Uguali" recently passed to "Italia viva") in some inspections in Sicilian prisons: during those visits the bosses would have entrusted the parliamentary assistant with messages to be delivered outside.

The deputy is not under investigation, the collaborator would have acted without his knowledge.

Nicosia led a TV program, "Half an hour of air", was the director of the international observatory of human rights and a member of the National Committee of Italian Radicals, recently the event was held in Florence in the Leopolda audience renziana.

But, meanwhile, he maintained relations with the mafia of rank. Above all, the head man of Sciacca, Accursio Dimino, 61, a fish entrepreneur and former professor of physical education, who has always been very close to the fugitive Messina Denaro: he too was arrested in this night's blitz.

The interceptions showed that Nicosia went to visit a prisoner in the Castelvetrano clan.

In the face of the prison face, behind the screen of his role as parliamentary assistant that guaranteed privacy, Nicosia would have threatened the man. He had to keep his mouth shut. Some feared he might regret it. The detention was carried out during the night. The suspects had to be blocked urgently. During the investigation their objective to move abroad was to emerge. Particularly in the United States, where the bosses of the powerful Gambino mafia family were waiting for them.