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Offer you can refuse? Holidays at an ex-mafia hideout focus 06/08/2010

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Offer you can refuse? Holidays at an ex-mafia hideout



focus

06/08/2010
CORLEONE — Here’s an offer that may not be so hard to refuse: a few nights’ stay at the former hideout of a ruthless mafia boss near the town that partly inspired the Godfather books and films.

Not sold on a break in blood-stained land?

Consider this: there’s no more sleeping with the fishes, as the Sicilian saying goes.

The property, which includes the sheep pen where imprisoned mafia chief Toto Riina once hid out, has been transformed into a rustic bed-and-breakfast in the heart of western Sicily and given a new name, the “Lands of Corleone.”

It forms part of a list of former mafia assets seized by Italian authorities and recently turned into holiday spots, vineyards or olive oil factories, giving new life to lands tainted by violence and crime.

There’s no hint that one of the clan’s grislier murders of the 1990s was carried out not far away, when Riina’s right-hand man Giovanni Brusca strangled the young Giusepppe di Matteo then dissolved his body in acid to punish the teenager’s father for turning state’s witness.

Consider another project some 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) down the road, where a sign reading “mafia-seized asset” greets clients of the “I Cento Passi” winery — named for a 2002 movie on the mafia killing of journalist Peppino Impastato.

“We are right outside of Corleone, and this fully planted vineyard proves that, starting out from nothing, we can produce excellence, a vine offering its most refined varieties,” Francesco Galante of the Libera association said.
Libera, an anti-mafia organization founded by a Catholic priest, the Reverend Don Ciotti, specializes in the remodeling of seized assets. But that job has not come without its risks.... MORE    

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100608com7.html


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