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The Tragic Fate Of Aldo Moro And Peppino Impastato

Giuseppe “Peppino” Impastato was born in Cinisi, in the then province of Palermo, into a Mafia family. His father Luigi Impastato had been sent into internal exile during the fascist era, and was a close friend of Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti. His father’s brother-in-law, Cesare Manzella, was an important mafia boss who was killed in car bomb attack in 1963. As an adolescent, Peppino broke off relations with his father – who kicked him out of the house – and initiated a series of political and cultural Antimafia activities.

According to his younger brother Giovanni Impastato, Peppino’s Antimafia activity might have been triggered by the brutal murder of his uncle by marriage, Cesare Manzella, who was blown to pieces by a car bomb in April 1963 when Peppino was fifteen years old. Pieces of his uncle – who was the Mafia boss of Cinisi at the time – were found stuck to lemon trees hundreds of meters from the crater where the car had been. Peppino was traumatized: “Is this really Mafia? If this is Mafia I will fight it for the rest of my life .

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