Placido Rizzotto, a union representative, was buried last Thursday in an Italian state funeral taking place near Palermo in the town of Corleone, more than six decades after he was killed by the mafia.
In 1948, Rizzotto, was just 34 when he was murdered for his work organising peasant land occupations, trying to help farmers take over unfarmed land on large estates in the area.
The following year his remains went missing amid a probe conducted by military police Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, who would climb to the rank of general only to be shot dead by the mafia few decades later in
1982.
Rizzotto's bons were found in 2009. On the 9th of March 2012, DNA testing, compared with that extracted from his father, Carmelo Rizzotto, long dead and resumed for this purpose, has confirmed that the remains found in Rocca Busambra in Corleone belong to Placido.
Italy's interior minister Annamaria Cancellieri, President Giorgio Napolitano and union leader Susanna Camusso attended the funeral. "Today we seek justice for the many union organisers killed by the mafia," Camusso, leader of Italy's biggest trade union told reporters upon her arrival to Corleone.
