Rita Borsellino, sister of judge killed by mafia, dies

Rita Borsellino

PALERMO – Rita Borsellino, the sister of the judge Paolo Borsellino who was killed by the mafia in 1992 has died at the age of 72 in Palermo after fighting an illness in intensive care, doctors said on Friday.

 A pharmacist, from 2009 to 2014 she was the European Parliamentary elective on the list of the Pd, Italy’s Democratic Party. The youngest of four siblings, she died in the afternoon of August 15 in the intensive ward at the civic hospital in Palermo. Last February she lost her husband, Renato Fiore. The mother of three children, she fought until the truth surrounding the death of her brother emerged.

 In 2006, after 10 years as vice-president of ‘Libera’, the anti-mafia association founded by Luigi Ciotti, Rita Borsellino was the centre-right candidate for the regional Sicilian presidency. After having winning the initial rounds she was up against the re-election of the leaving governor Salvatore Cuffaro, but she obtained over 41 percent of the votes. She was the European Parliamentary elective in 2009 and three years later stood for the position of Palermo mayor but was just beaten by Fabrizio Ferrandelli.

 Last July 19, on the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Via D’Amelio massacre, she explained that the best way to follow her brother’s values on justice was with the daily commitment, by everyone, to seek the truth.

 cb