Giovanni Brusca

Giovanni Brusca (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni ˈbruska]; born 20 February 1957) is an Italian mobster and former member of the Corleonesi clan of the Sicilian Mafia. He played a major role in the 1992 murders of Antimafia Commission prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and businessman Ignazio Salvo, and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders. Brusca had been sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for Mafia association and multiple murder. He was captured in 1996, turned pentito and his sentence reduced to 26 years in prison. In 2021, Brusca was released from prison on parole.

A pudgy, bearded and unkempt mafioso, Brusca was known in Mafia circles as 'u verru (in Sicilian), il porco or il maiale (in Italian; "the pig", "the swine"), and 'u scannacristiani ("the people-slayer"; in the Sicilian language, the word cristianu means both "Christian" and "human being"). Tommaso Buscetta, the Mafia pentito who had cooperated with Falcone's investigations, remembered Brusca as "a wild stallion but a great leader."

Early life

Giovanni Brusca was born on 20 February 1957 in San Giuseppe Jato. His grandfather and great-grandfather, both farmers, were made members of the Mafia. His father Bernardo Brusca (1929–2000), a local Mafia patriarch, served concurrent life sentences for numerous homicides. Bernardo allied himself with the Corleonesi clan of Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca Bagarella when he replaced Antonio Salamone as capomandamento of San Giuseppe Jato. He paved the way for his three sons' careers—Giovanni, his younger brother Vincenzo and elder brother Emanuele. When Bernardo was sent to prison in 1985, Giovanni became head of his San Giuseppe Jato district.