A mafia turncoat has revealed for the first time that Sicily’s Cosa Nostra tested bomb-loaded remote controlled aircraft in the early 1990s.
Two decades before the US began using Reapers to strike terrorist targets in the Middle East, mobsters in Palermo were testing ways to rain death on rivals from the sky, former mafioso Gaspare Spatuzza told a court on Tuesday.
Spatuzza said he was ordered by one of the Graviano brothers – two senior Palermo bosses in the 1990s – to buy and flight test radio controlled aircraft with explosives attached.
“Graviano ordered me to buy a radio controlled aircraft,” he said. “He said others had already bought them and we needed to carry out tests for transforming them into flying bombs by loading them with explosives.”
Spatuzza said he had spent around 500 euros on the aircraft. “I carried out some tests,” he said. “We needed to learn how to pilot it and steer it towards targets, loading it with a modest amount of explosives.” He did not say if the aircraft was used in an attack.
Spatuzza’s claims mark the first time a Sicilian mobster has revealed Cosa Nostra’s aim of using remote controlled aircraft for murder. His testing of the rudimentary UAS came as the mafia was becoming ever more sophisticated in its use of radio-detonated explosives in the 1990s
Spatuzza, who was arrested in 1997 before deciding to give evidence against the mafia, was speaking on Tuesday at a new trial connected to Borsellino’s murder. He has been convicted of 40 murders, but claims to have found God in prison, pushing him to give evidence against former fellow mobsters.
Photo: Gaspare Spatuzza
Source: The Daily Telegraph