After preventing the Sicilian Mafia from getting their hands on agricultural funds, Giuseppe Antoci has been under police protection for nearly a decade. Coming to the European Parliament with bodyguards, he now wants to become the EU's main anti-mafia champion.
ADVERTISEMENTAs president of Nebrodi Park, Sicily's largest nature reserve, Giuseppe Antoci stepped in to prevent European agricultural funds from falling into the hands of the Italian island's Mafia clans, clamping down on a major funding channel for organised crime.
Unsurprisingly, this rubbed the Mafia the wrong way, Antoci said, and he was suddenly in their crosshairs as their nemesis.
"Becoming an enemy means you first face threats. They warn you to stop, and if you persist, it escalates," he told Euronews.
In May 2016, Antoci survived the only mob hit attempt since the 1992 Capaci bombing that killed the famous fearless magistrate Giovanni Falcone and four others.
Eight years ago, four state police officers saved Antoci's life in a violent gun battle. "They brought me home to my wife and daughters," he recalled.
His dedication earned him the honour of Officer of Merit of the Italian Republic, awarded to him by President Sergio Mattarella, who also lost his brother to the Mafia.
The funding protection protocol he devised was extended across Sicily, while then-European Commissioner for Trade Phil Hogan recognised him as a "prime example" of how to commit to the fight against organised crime.
Though replaced as president of Nebrodi Park in February 2018, Antoci still faces threats from Mafia clans — even though the assassination attempt failed, the mob never forgets.
Bodyguards in the European Parliament
The special protection measures Antoci and his family have to live under also extend abroad. As a newly minted MEP, his daily routine is completely different from that of his colleagues in Brussels.
Following his election to the European Parliament with the populist Five Star Movement, a part of The Left group, his office had to be decked out with additional security features, and it has no outward-facing windows.
In the Parliament's corridors, Antoci is never alone. Police officers escort him at all times, accompanying him to his meetings and waiting for him just outside the room.
For the next five years, he will serve on the Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, focusing on what he knows best: organised crime, which he calls "an economic dead weight" on the European Union.
"I have already proposed a resolution to establish a committee to address organised crime, which has only been created once before in the European Parliament," Antoci explained.
"We believe mobs are globalised, and organised crime is present in many European countries and territories."
Antoci and his family's lives are marked by significant limitations, forced to live in a constantly patrolled home and under heightened security. Yet, Antoci has no doubt that it is worth it.
ADVERTISEMENT"You can die in a Mafia massacre, like what almost happened to me with those brave policemen," he said.
"There would be commemorations, gravestones, and in memoriams. And that's fine, but you only die then and there."
"However, there is another way to die: getting up in the morning, looking in the mirror, knowing you haven't done your duty, feeling dirty, and being unable to look your daughters in the eye, all while telling them to live righteously, without lowering their gaze or bending their back," he pondered.
"That mirror kills you every day."
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