http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLbYDg6Qyj8 - The Maxi Trial in 1986, I couldn't find it in English. If you find it, it would be awesome. Real mafiosi speak, including Tommaso Buscetta, Luciano Liggio, Michele Greco, Pippo Calo... but I could't find english subtitles also.

By the way, I have the documentary with the best possible quality, I don't know how to upload it. If someone is ready to put subtitles, I'm ready to give you the better quality, just tell me how to upload it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWgaqXFx1gU


Here,with english subtitles.Not the same but u have a lot of testimony with subtitles.

I remember following the trial with excitement and I tried to read all the reports available back then.
474 Mafiosi were held in a specially constructed bunker in the Palermo prison. One third of the accused was absent. If you limit the group to the most powerful mafia bosses and those who committed the most serious crimes, three-quarters was absent.
They were wanted but had managed to escape the massive arrests.
I think all Italy was shocked about the whole process, especially the Sicilians who had never experienced anything like this before.

The maxi process lasted two years. 114 of the 474 were acquitted.
19 life sentences were imposed. And a total of 2 665 years in prison was imposed.
But the big chaos occurred in 1991 when all the convicted mafiosi tried to have their convictions appealed in Italian Supreme Court.
Very unexpectedly, the Court decided to release 41 of the most important Mafiosi. The reason was that the time within which such appeal must be initiated had expired. A new prosecutor, who had replaced the old one (who had been murdered) simply didn´t find the time to prepare himself properly for the process. He got the blame.
The bosses walked out of prison with a smile on their faces.
But the Italian government intervened and issued a decree that annulled the Supreme Court's decision and brought back the released into prison. The debate became violent. The lawyers contended that the government decision must be repealed because it was unconstitutional. This led to multiple government crises which gave most of the mafiosi their freedom back.

Crazy, isn´t it?

For a big part, they had Corrado Carnevale to thank for that, who was the president of the appeal court at the time and overthrew a lot of of the convictions on minor technicality's.

Carnevale was close to politicians like Salvatore Lima and ex prime minister Andreotti, who both had close ties to Cosa Nostra. Corrado was sentenced to six years for conspiring with the Mafia in 2001, but his sentence was later overturned.

The crazy part is, Carnevale is currently a member of the Italian Supreme Court.