Netanyahu Continues to Incite Against Investigators, and It Could End in Blood

Twenty-eight years ago this Sunday, Giovanni Falcone’s car was racing down the road from the Punta Raisi airport in Palermo to the center of the Sicilian capital. Three cars and seven bodyguards accompanied the Italian investigative judge, who had spent years investigating the ties between the Cosa Nostra and the top ranks of the Christian Democratic party. His wife, Judge Francesca Morvillo, sat beside him in the convoy’s middle car.

“Hell opened up before us,” one of the drivers who survived later testified. “A terrifying explosion … a scene from the apocalypse … screams of terror … an unreal silence.” 

Falcone, his wife and several bodyguards were killed by the enormous bomb that had been planted by the roadside earlier. But before assassinating him physically, they had assassinated his reputation. 

This is a view of the wrecked cars following a car bomb assassination of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone in Palermo, Sicily, Saturday, May 24, 1992. Associated Press

He was the target of delusional smear attacks by self-interested politicians and the usual collaborators with the powerful – the toadying journalists and jurists whom Italian journalist Giorgio Bocca described as “the grotesque and greasy masks of a corrupt and mediocre power.” Falcone’s strongest and most persistent feeling before his death was of extreme isolation.

Liat Ben Ari, the chief prosecutor in the cases against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, climbed the steps to the Jerusalem District Court on Sunday accompanied by several brawny men. Until the investigations into Netanyahu began, she had never been either threatened or guarded, even though she oversaw several criminal cases against wealthy, powerful figures.