Giovanni Brusca | |
|---|---|
 Mafia boss Giovanni Brusca | |
| Born | Giovanni Brusca 20 February 1957 San Giuseppe Jato, Sicily, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Other names | 'U verru ("The Pig") 'U scannacristiani ("The People-Slayer") |
| Occupation | Mobster |
| Criminal status | Released |
| Allegiance | Corleonesi |
| Conviction(s) | Mafia association Multiple murder |
| Criminal charge | Mafia association Multiple murder |
| Penalty | Life imprisonment later reduced to 26 years |
Giovanni Brusca (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni ˈbruska]; born 20 February 1957) is an Italian mobster and former member of the Corleonesi clan of the Sicilian Mafia. He played a major role in the 1992 murders of Antimafia Commission prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and businessman Ignazio Salvo, and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders.[1] Brusca had been sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for Mafia association and multiple murder. He was captured in 1996, turned pentito and his sentence reduced to twenty-six years in prison. In 2021, Brusca was released from prison.
A pudgy, bearded and unkempt mafioso, Brusca was known in Mafia circles as 'u verru (in Sicilian), il porco or il maiale (in Italian; "the pig", "the swine"), and 'u scannacristiani ("the people-slayer"; in the Sicilian language, the word cristianu means both "Christian" and "human being"). Tommaso Buscetta, the Mafia pentito who had cooperated with Falcone's investigations, remembered Brusca as "a wild stallion but a great leader."[2]
- ^ "Dalla strage di Capaci all'uccisione del piccolo Giuseppe Di Matteo: ecco chi è Giovanni Brusca" (in Italian). corriere.it. 7 October 2019.
- ^ "'The Pig" is Penned", Time International, 3 June 1996.