ROME, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-five years after he was killed by mobsters, top anti-mafia judge Paolo Borsellino was commemorated with various initiatives across Italy on Wednesday.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella led a special ceremony to honor the slain magistrate at the High Council of the Judiciary (CSM) here, appealing for a "a final word of justice" in the long path to identity and condemn masterminds and authors of his killing.
"Borsellino fought the mafia with resolution, convinced as he was that the mafia is not an ineluctable evil, but a criminal phenomenon that can be defeated," Mattarella told the plenary of CSM.
"His tragic death, along with that of those escorting him, still waits for a final word of justice."
The president also stressed that "too many uncertainties and mistakes have accompanied the search for truth on this slaughter, and still many questions about those responsible for his heinous killing are open."
Paolo Borsellino was killed on July 19, 1992, by a car bombing in Palermo, along with five police officers of his escort.
His murder came 57 days after the killing of fellow top anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, which was perpetrated with a similar mafia bomb on a motorway in Sicily.
Borsellino and Falcone had developed new methods in investigating the mafia since the early 1980s, reaching unprecedented results against what was the most powerful crime syndicate at the time: the Sicilian mob, or 'Cosa Nostra'.
Their killing represented the most brutal attack by the Sicilian mafia against Italy's state and judiciary, and their deaths marked one of the darkest moments in the country's recent history.
Celebrating the 25th anniversary in parliament on Wednesday, senate speaker Pietro Grasso -- a former anti-mafia prosecutor himself -- recalled the results reached against mobsters since then, although acknowledging the mafia was not beaten.
"In the name of Borsellino (and Falcone), we have reached many results in the fight against organized crime in these 25 years," Grasso told lawmakers.
"Yet, we have defeated the 'Cosa Nostra' violent and bloodthirsty, but not that (part of) mafia that is able to change its skin and disappear from the public opinion's eye, and to infiltrate all levels of the Italian society," he warned.
As it has become common on this date, several events to honor Borsellino were held by anti-mafia and civil society groups across Italy.
Key celebrations were planned all day long in Palermo, Sicily's regional capital where the magistrate was born and began his carrier in the judiciary.
Citizens, national and local politicians, and public officers marched through the street where Borsellino actually met his death.
Besides scoring growing results in the fight against the economic and criminal power of the three major mafia organizations operating in the country -- Cosa Nostra, Naples-based Camorra, and Calabrian 'Ndrangheta -- Italy has seen a stronger anti-mafia awareness develop in its civil society.
Yet, the full truth about the slaughter of Borsellino is yet to be discovered, according to both his relatives and major anti-mafia experts.
Three trials have been held since 1994, resulting in some 47 people convicted in connection with his murder.
A fourth trial began in 2013, after fresh allegations by a mafia informer on the true masterminds and deep reasons behind the slaughter of the magistrate.
This first-grade trial ended in April 2017, sentencing two bosses to life in prison for being among the perpetrators, and another two mobsters to 10 years in jail for giving testimonies that misled previous investigations.
Some aspects of Borsellino's murder (as much as of Falcone's), however, have remained a mystery so far.
These would include alleged secret negotiations run between representatives of the Italian state and mafia members in the early 1990s, and the disappearing of the red diary on which Borsellino was used to write down details of his work the year of his death.
