Nicola Mancino

Mancino was born in Montefalcione, province of Avellino (Campania). He became first provincial and then regional secretary of Democrazia Cristiana (Italy's Christian Democratic Party), being elected for the first time in the Italian Senate in 1976. So far he had been reconfirmed in all subsequent elections.

He was Minister of the Interior from 1992 to 1994. On 1 July 1992, magistrate Paolo Borsellino had a meeting with Mancino, who at the time had just been named as Minister; Borsellino would be killed just over two weeks later with a car bomb, on 19 July. Mancino however always denied that he had met Borsellino.{{cite web|last=Borsellino|first=Salvatore|title=Le domande che non avrei voluto fare|url=http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2010/09/27/le-domande-che-non-avrei-voluto-fare/65084/|work=Il Fatto Quotidiano|date=27 September 2010 |access-date=23 May 2012}} In a television interview of 24 July 2009, judge Giuseppe Ayala said that:

{{blockquote|Mancino himself told me that he had met Borsellino on 1 July 1992. More: Mancino showed me his meeting agenda with the name of Borsellino on it}}

However, later Ayala refuted these words in an interview to magazine Sette. A personal agenda in possess of Borsellino's family, has an annotation by the judge saying: "1 July h 19:30 : Mancino".{{cite web|last=Borsellino|first=Salvatore|title=LA REPLICA DI SALVATORE BORSELLINO AL SEN.MANCINO|url=http://www.processionemisteritp.it/per_non_dimenticare/replica%20_borselliino_a_mancino.htm|access-date=23 May 2012}} Vittorio Aliquò, the other magistrate who was interviewing Mutolo at the time of ministry's phone call, later declared that he had accompanied Borsellino "up to the threshold of the minister's office".{{cite web|last=Alfano|first=Chicco|title=Quell'agenda rossa di Paolo Borsellino...|url=http://www.ammazzatecitutti.org/articoli/070719_alfano_borsellino.htm|access-date=23 May 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090612185524/http://www.ammazzatecitutti.org/articoli/070719_alfano_borsellino.htm|archive-date=12 June 2009}} In 2007 a letter from Paolo Borsellino's brother, Salvatore, was published. Entitled 19 luglio 1992: Una strage di stato ("19 July 1992: A state massacre"), the letter supports the hypothesis that Minister of Interiors Nicola Mancino knew the causes of the magistrate's assassination. Borsellino's brother wrote:

{{blockquote|I ask Mancino, of whom I remembered, of the years after 1992, a hardly pushed down drop in the commemorations of Paolo in Palermo, to squeeze his memory to tell us what they talked about in the meeting with Paolo in the days immediately before his death. Or to explain us why, after calling my brother to meet him when he was interrogating Gaspare Mutolo, just 48 hours before the massacre, he had him meet the Head of Police Parisi and Bruno Contrada, a meeting from which Paolo got out shattered, at the point that he was seen holding two cigarettes at the same time... In that meeting is surely the key to his death and the Massacre of Via D'Amelio.{{cite web|title=Il fratello di Borsellino: "Mancino ora sveli perché incontrò Paolo"|url=http://www.ilgiornale.it/interni/il_fratello_borsellino_mancino_ora_sveli_perche_incontro_paolo/17-07-2007/articolo-id=193201-page=0-comments=1|work=Il Giornale|access-date=23 May 2012}}}}

A law enacted and signed by Mancino in 1993 during his tenure as Interior Minister permits the prosecution of those involved in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination and the incitement of hate crime. This law is commonly called the "Mancino law".{{cite web |url=https://www.legislationline.org/documents/id/19322 |title=Criminal Code (1993) (excerpts) |work=LegislatiOnline |access-date=10 October 2020 |archive-date=12 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201012051803/https://www.legislationline.org/documents/id/19322 |url-status=dead }}{{cite news |url=https://www.ansa.it/english/news/politics/2018/08/03/scrap-anti-fascist-mancino-law-minister_0f19cf02-7575-4025-a855-8eff50d21c61.html|title= Furore as family minister moots scrapping anti-fascist Mancino law |work= ANSA on Politics|date=3 August 2018}}

In 1994, after the dissolution of Democrazia Cristiana, Mancino adhered to the Italian People's Party (PPI), collaborating with its secretary, Mino Martinazzoli. In July of the same year, he opposed the alliance with the right-wing coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, and also opposed the election of Rocco Buttiglione as PPI secretary.

Later, he became a member of La Margherita (The Daisy) coalition of parties born out of the left wing of the PPI. After the victory of the center-left coalition led by Romano Prodi in the 1996 elections, Mancino was elected President of the Italian Senate, and served from 9 May 1996 until 29 May 2001.

On 24 July 2006, he left the Senate and became deputy-president of the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, Italy's senior council of justice. In July 2012, prosecutors in Palermo ordered Mancino to stand trial for withholding evidence about the alleged talks between the Italian state and the Mafia during the latter's bombing campaign in 1992 that assassinated, among others, the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.[http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Aki/English/Politics/Italy-Ex-interior-minister-implicated-in-mafia-negotiations_313538879018.html Italy: Ex-interior minister implicated in mafia negotiations], Adnkronos, 25 July 2012 On 20 April 2018, he was acquitted.{{cite news|url=http://palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2018/04/20/news/trattativa_la_sentenza-194385337/|title=Trattativa Stato-mafia, condannati Mori, De Donno, Dell'Utri e Bagarella. Assolto Mancino|date=20 April 2018|work=La Repubblica|language=it}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090831090155/http://www.csm.it/ Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura]
• [http://www.senato.it/leg/13/BGT/Schede/Attsen/00001425.htm Nicola Mancino] at Italian Senate, XIII Legislature
• [http://www.senato.it/leg/14/BGT/Schede/Attsen/00001425.htm Nicola Mancino] at Italian Senate, XIV Legislature
• [http://www.radioradicale.it/soggetti/nicola-mancino Nicola Mancino] at Radio Radicale

{{s-start}}

{{s-off}}

{{s-bef|before=Vincenzo Scotti}}

{{s-ttl|title=Minister of the Interior|years=1992–1994}}

{{s-aft|after=Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
{{Small|Acting}}}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=Carlo Scognamiglio}}

{{s-ttl|title=President of the Italian Senate|years=1996–2001}}

{{s-aft|after=Marcello Pera}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=Oscar Luigi Scalfaro}}

{{s-ttl|title=President of Italy
{{Small|Acting}} |years=1999}}

{{s-aft|after=Carlo Azeglio Ciampi}}

|-

{{s-legal}}

{{s-bef|before=Virginio Rognoni}}

{{s-ttl|title=Vice President of the High Council of the Judiciary|years=2006–2010}}

{{s-aft|after=Michele Vietti}}

{{s-end}}

{{President of the Italian Senate}}

{{Italian Ministers of the Interiors}}

{{Amato I Cabinet}}

{{Ciampi Cabinet}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mancino, Nicola}}

Category:1931 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from the Province of Avellino

Category:Ministers of the interior of Italy

Category:Presidents of the Italian Senate

Category:Presidents of Campania

Category:Christian Democracy (Italy) politicians

Category:Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire

Category:20th-century Italian politicians

Category:Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy politicians

Category:Acting presidents of Italy