PALERMO: Thousands of people from across Italy massed in Sicily on Wednesday for demonstrations marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination of leading anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone.
His murder in a bomb attack by the Sicilian Mafia shocked the nation and while Cosa Nostra's grip has been weakened in the two decades since, it is still far from a spent force.
"We came so we don't forget," said a banner carried by national anti-Mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso and Education Minister Francesco Profumo who travelled to Sicily on boats along with thousands of school pupils and students.
On the road from Palermo airport to the city centre, a tall red monument stands in memory of the 500-kilogram bomb used in the attack on a motorcade which killed Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and three bodyguards on May 23, 1992.
On a hillside to the right stands the small outbuilding in which Giovanni Brusca activated the detonator on orders from the then head of the Mafia, Toto Riina. Both men are now serving out life sentences.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and Prime Minister Mario Monti are due to attend a ceremony in Palermo to mark the 20th anniversary of the bombing, along with a number of ministers.
"There is no reason of state that can justify the delays in establishing the facts and those responsible," Monti said, with mystery still surrounding some aspects of the murder.
Journalists and prosecutors have been investigating for years a possible "state plot" to eliminate Falcone and his colleague Paolo Borsellino murdered by a car bomb two months later because their inquiries were destabilising political power.
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