For twelve years, there was a young magistrate in Partanna, in the province of Trapani, who administered justice—both criminal and civil—among the people. He valued the human connection: he listened to people, engaged in dialogue, and was empathetic but fair. His name was Rocco Chinnici.
In 1966, he was promoted and moved to Palermo, where the first mafia war had just unfolded. A brief truce was shattered by the Viale Lazio massacre in 1969. Starting in 1970, Rocco Chinnici mainly focused on the phenomenon of the Mafia, coming to understand its international connections and its ties to political and institutional environments.
Chinnici's work wasn't confined to the courtroom. He also worked to raise public and institutional awareness about the anti-mafia cause. During the heroin epidemic, his attention turned to the youth. In his free time, he participated in dozens of awareness meetings in schools.
Together with Gaetano Costa, he fought for the recognition of the crime of mafia-type criminal association, ensuring that judges could investigate and intervene in the vast illegal assets controlled by the Mafia. A revolutionary move he made was to create task forces in his office, forming what would later be known as the “anti-mafia pool”.
He wanted two young magistrates by his side: Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Together, they laid the groundwork for the most significant mafia trials of the 1980s. The “162 Report” is considered the core of what would become the first Maxi-Trial.
It was 8:05 AM on Friday, July 29, 1983, when Rocco Chinnici was killed by a car bomb parked in front of his house on Giuseppe Pipitone Federico Street. The 75 kg of TNT killed Chinnici, the two carabinieri of his escort—Mario Trapassi and Salvatore Bartolotta—and the building porter, Stefano Li Sacchi. By pure chance, Chinnici’s driver, Giovanni Paparcuri, would be the only one to survive.