Trilogy about Graziano Mesina – Part 2 ‘The Hero’

(Newcomers to this topic should start with Part 1)

I believe that Graziano Mesina's success in shedding his criminal image would have been inconceivable without the left-wing zeitgeist of the time. In the 1960s and 1970s, Mao, Fidel and Che were the good guys, while America and its Vietnam War were the personification of evil. Mesina came along at just the right time to target Italy as a ‘stronghold of imperialism’. But was he really the figure that people tried to stylise him as?

After the honour killing in 1962, Mesina was sentenced to 24 years in prison. In January 1963, he made a first unsuccessful attempt to escape from Nuoro prison. In 1964, he managed to escape from a moving train that was taking him to a court hearing. However, his freedom and joy were always short-lived. His dangerousness was recognised, and in order to prevent him from exploring the environment for escape attempts, he was regularly transferred to new prisons. Nevertheless, he tried again and again. In doing so, he was extremely cunning and inventive. Especially in 1966.

He found a kindred spirit in a Spanish foreign legionnaire. The two of them escaped from the prison in Sassari, which was considered particularly secure. As a Sardinian, Graziano had a ‘home advantage’ here, and so he managed to go into hiding. With several kidnappings, once even disguised as a policeman, the two convicts amassed a fortune worth millions.

‘Grazianeddu’, as his compatriots affectionately called him, did not lose the sympathy of the Sardinians during all these actions. On the contrary. The actions were so daring, so brazen and so spectacular that his ‘achievements’ were filmed several times.

The toll was considerable: by the time they were arrested in 1968, the two bandits had been charged with an impressive series of crimes: 28 murders, 20 attempted murders, 16 kidnappings and 22 robberies. My Sardinian friends don't believe this. They think it's more likely that the police were a little too generous in handing out convictions. It is true that seven police officers were killed in the fight with the bandits, but so was his Spanish accomplice. Mesina sent red roses to his grave and swore to avenge him.

1968 also saw a visit by Feltrinelli* to Sardinia. He had a vision of turning Sardinia into a Cuba of the Mediterranean. From Sardinia, the revolution was to sweep across Europe, and Mesina was to command the revolutionary troops, just like Che Guevara. However, before this questionable promotion could take place, Messina ended up in prison again. This marked the beginning of a long odyssey through Italy's high-security prisons, accompanied by repeated escape attempts. His trick of pretending to be insane in order to escape more easily was laughed at throughout Italy.

While he was in prison, his brother Nicola was murdered in 1976. Bandits had stopped the truck he was travelling in with other workers. They forced him to get out and shot him in front of his comrades. Graziano requested permission to attend the funeral. His request was denied. In his eyes, this was yet another injustice, which led him to ponder escape plans even more. In doing so, he fell in with ‘friends’ with whom he would normally never have associated, as he was actually completely apolitical.

We are talking about the Red Brigades. These were violent left-wing terrorists who were the role models for the Baader-Meinhof Group RAF, which was active in Germany. In August 1976, he broke out of prison with members of the Red Brigades. Most Sardinians were delighted with Grazianeddu's new ‘coup’ and expected him to return to Sardinia to avenge his brother. I can still remember very well how my Sardinian friends predicted with genuine pride what would happen next. I could clearly sense that they supported the avenging angel and agreed with what they expected him to do.

In fact, however, he remained on the mainland and joined the Red Brigades. The terrorists benefited from his ‘expertise’ as a kidnapper. He succeeded in kidnapping several industrialists. However, he did not allow them to be ‘executed’, but insisted that they be released after payment had been made. On the other hand, he rejected the kidnapping of women and children as dishonourable. He expressly condemned the kidnapping of the children of the German journalist Kronzucker, which coincided with this phase of his life. Fighting alongside the Red Brigades earned him the sympathy of the left-wing press.

His popularity grew, even though his wanted poster was displayed all over Italy and a record reward had been offered for his capture. Those around him were not corrupted by this. On the contrary! He received fan mail, mostly from female admirers, and no one wanted to earn the high reward. What's more, he became a folk hero. At village fairs in Sardinia, he was celebrated as a lone fighter who fooled the state and punished its ‘henchmen’.

When he was imprisoned again in 1977, he already had the image of a Che Guevara-style revolutionary. However, the reality of the situation became apparent during a prison leave that was granted to him in 1984. He missed the right time to return and was picked up from the bed of one of his pen pals, with whom he had enjoyed a romantic weekend – completely apolitical. This earned him another six months, so that he was only released on parole in 1992 on condition that he did not return to Sardinia.

He therefore settled near Asti in Piedmont. There, in the same year, he was visited by Indro Montanelli*, after Jean Paul Sartre the second intellectual giant who gave left-wing terrorism its reputation at the time. (Sartre had visited Baader/Meinhof in Stammheim prison, attracting media attention and thereby enhancing the group's intellectual standing.) With the same intention, Italy's most famous journalist now took an interest in Mesina and offered him his help. The result of this care was an autobiography that turned the bandit into a poet.

It is well known that Mesina suffered greatly from not being allowed to return to his Sardinian homeland. A coincidence came to his aid, however, enabling him to return home:

In January 1992, a seven-year-old boy was kidnapped by gangsters on the Costa Smeralda. Because the kidnappers believed that little Farouk Kassam was a relative of the Aga Khan, they demanded an absurdly high ransom. The negotiations soon reached an impasse because the father was not particularly wealthy and the Italian state had frozen all of the parents' accounts. This was unavoidable because a law had been passed shortly before to curb kidnapping crimes. When the kidnappers remained unimpressed by the police's negotiating tactics and even cut off part of the boy's ear, Mesina intervened.

His role as mediator has never been clarified. Although he had no official mandate, the fact that he was allowed to return to the island indicates that the state had requested his assistance. Apparently successfully: the child was released shortly afterwards in July 1992. However, scholars still argue about how this was achieved. The police celebrated their victory, Mesina celebrated his. While the police claimed that no ransom had been paid, Mesina claimed that the police had paid the kidnappers the equivalent of 1 million euros with his help. Mesina thus accused the police not only of lying, but also of violating the law. Neither claim could be proven.

In Budoni, my friends explained to me that everything was crystal clear: the police wanted to take credit for someone else's work. They simply begrudged Messina his success. All they had to do was thank him, and everything would have been fine. But instead, they forced him to make the truth public, and it was not very flattering. Later, they took revenge on him for it. During a house search, the police claimed to have found a Kalashnikov and other weapons in his possession. However, as he himself insisted, these had been planted on him in revenge for exposing them. At that point, he had long since been harmless and had no use for such items.

I have never been able to distinguish between fact and fiction in Messina's story. In any case, he was now in serious trouble: the conviction for illegal possession of weapons led to the revocation of his probation, and under Italian law, all the sentences imposed for various offences had to be added together. They amounted to an impressive 38 years, which now awaited him behind bars.

There was only one way out of this situation: a petition for clemency to the President of the Republic. It cannot have been good for his pride to grovel in this way, but he chose this path. The proceedings dragged on for several years. On 25 November 2004, he was finally granted amnesty, despite massive resistance, including from Giovanni Falcone*.

This ended 40 years in prison, 5 on the run and 11 under house arrest. In the same year, he returned to Orgosolo as a free man. Seemingly reformed.

With a Sardinian ‘Adiosu’, I bid you farewell for today.

Joachim Waßmann

Notes

We owe the world-famous photo of Che Guevara to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

No Sardinian church festival is complete without the tenores. Their archaic songs also address current issues. They alone make it worthwhile to visit these festivals in Sardinia.

Indro Montanelli was an uncomfortable maverick and outstanding journalist throughout his life.

Giovanni Falcone made a name for himself as a public prosecutor through his uncompromising fight against the Mafia. He was assassinated in a car bomb attack in 1992.

Continue to part 3