Agostino's murder: for the Supreme Court, the versions of Brusca, Galatolo and Pagano do not provide concrete elements
The information reported by Brusca would not have been first-hand and, above all, it would not have been possible to trace it back to a certain source.

by David Ferrara

March 29, 2025

According to the Court of Cassation, the statements and accounts of the informers, including Giovanni Brusca, Vito Galatolo and Oreste Pagano (a person with a criminal record for crimes related to international drug trafficking, but completely unrelated to the context of the Palermo mafia, so much so that he did not even know the Madonias), on which the trial was based, do not provide the concrete elements («beyond any reasonable doubt») that would indicate Nino Madonia as the material perpetrator of the murders. Indeed, in some cases «they were misjudged».

In particular, Brusca's versions, whose source would have been the boss of bosses, Totò Riina, "do not authorize - write the ermines - to believe that Riina had a certainty of this type (that is, that it was Antonino Madonia who killed Nino Agostino and Ida Castelluccio, ed.). The same contested sentence, with evident uncertainty - the judges continue in their reasons - oscillates between the hypothesis of a Riina possibly forewarned by Madonia of the crime and of a Riina unaware of everything and who carried out internal investigations to find out who the crime could be attributed to". In short, the information reported by Brusca would not have been first-hand and, above all, it would not have been possible to trace it back to a certain source.

Another flaw in the reasoning is highlighted in the part where the sentence deemed Vito Galatolo credible, who reported having received confidences from his cousin Stefano Fontana about Nino Madonia's involvement in the crimes. A Galatolo who, however, at the time of the fact was 15 years old "and therefore was not affiliated with Cosa Nostra". For this reason, both the first and second degree sentences deemed it appropriate not to give these statements the same importance as those circulating among members of the criminal organization, contradicting themselves however later when, the ermines write, "the same importance is given to Galatolo's statements as those circulating among the affiliates. Furthermore, it was not considered that Galatolo had been deemed unreliable in the Apocalisse trial".

The statements of Oreste Pagano, who said he had received information from Alfonso Caruana, instead, were denied by the latter: «Caruana had denied having given Pagano - we read in the reasons - the confidence that the latter had spoken of». Furthermore, the information «would not be individualizing with reference to Nino Madonia, because it speaks of ''one of the Madonias''».

"The causa scientiae (the circumstances, that is, thanks to which one becomes aware of something) is the fundamental problem of this trial", underlines the Court of Cassation. Which continues: "None of the sources of knowledge of the collaborators who accuse Madonia of the commission of the crime were involved in the decision or in the execution of the murder, which means that it is not known in what way and through what chain of information, these sources could have learned the details of it".