"You took me for evil otherwise you wouldn't have taken me. With my mind I reconstructed everything as the speech was, I know that there was no traitor. The morning that they arrested me the first thing one thinks is that someone has betrayed. Jesus Christ was betrayed... and then the colonel told me 'I assure you that no one betrayed you' and I didn't believe him. Then, reasoning, I said: it's true. I read the papers and I made myself just a logic."
It is a passage from the interrogation given by Matteo Messina Denaro to the Palermo prosecutors on 7 July in the L'Aquila prison.
"I am, let's say in quotes, a mafioso as you consider me, a little anomalous, I haven't antagonized anyone in the territory, I mean my country. Everyone loves me.
This morning you thought you'd find a Rambo, but instead you found nothing " the mafioso had said.
"I have always been in what you consider the mafia to be a guarantee for everyone. I have never stolen anything from anyone. I'm talking about my environment, I have never tried to prevail, neither in pursuit of power, nor for money", he explained.
To the magistrates who asked him where the money found in the house of his sister Rosalia, who was later arrested, came from, he replied: "I needed it to support myself. The money found on my sister certainly came from my mother because it was family money, obviously if my mother he could help me he helped me."
"Do you think that I went out to carry out robberies or ask for extortion? - he asks the magistrates - I have never asked for extortion from anyone, I have never engaged in drug trafficking, I have never carried out robberies. The money was available to my family, my mother always tried to keep and give to everyone, especially to me."
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