May 23, Legality Day: Emanuela Loi, first policewoman to die in a mafia massacre

Emanuela Loi was the first policewoman to die in a mafia massacre. She was 24 years old and had arrived in Palermo from Sardinia, after having trained as a policewoman in Trieste. She didn't love Palermo and wanted to return home, to her beloved Sestu, where her parents, her sister Claudia and her brother Marcello were waiting for her. She called them almost every day from the barracks phone booth, one token, one call. She was no longer able to return to her room, which has remained frozen in time since that summer of 1992. The mafia killed her on 19 July 1992, in Via d'Amelio, while she was protecting judge Paolo Borsellino. They died together with her judge Borsellino and agents Agostino Catalano, Walter Eddie Cosina, Claudio Traina and Vincenzo Fabio Li Muli.

On the occasion of Legality Day, which occurs every year on May 23rd, in memory of the Capaci massacre in 1992, the docufilm «The Escort Boys 3»created by the Department of Public Security with the 42nd parallel company and the contribution of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which will go out this evening broadcast on Rai 3 at 11.10pmtraces the history of Emanuela Loi along with his words sister Claudiaof my colleague and close friend Emanuele Filiberto and of her niece Emanuela, born three months after the massacre and now a policewoman, like her aunt.

«At that moment I was completely dazed, I said “but where is my sister, where is my sister”». This is where Claudia Loi's memory starts: when she lost her sister she was just over twenty years old, like her. Her mind is still at the moment of arrival in front of the Court of Palermo, then a very long applause and all the coffins placed next to each other. “I couldn't imagine that Emanuela could be in there.” Together with Claudia, a short time before her, Emanuela had participated in the competition to join the Police but her first passion was to become a teacher. «I was the one who asked her to accompany me that day, she came and decided to participate. She achieved the highest score and immediately entered the ranking, but I didn't.” That day Emanuela Loi's destiny changed forever.

«The story of Emanuela Loi struck me immediately because it is a story that risks losing visibility over time because it is assimilated to the generic term “the massacre in which Paolo Borsellino and the escort agents lost their lives”. She becomes even less visible because the masculine plural “escort agents” does not reveal her presence as a woman”, explains Diana Ligorio, showrunner of the documentary. «This story begins on an island, Sardinia, Emanuela Loi's birthplace, and ends on another island, Sicily, scene of the Via D'Amelio massacre. The dimension of the island, of isolation, is central to the story of Paolo Borsellino but also of his escort agents who shared the famous 57 days with him, never leaving him alone. It is a story of isolation but also of tenacity as demonstrated by the attitude not only of the magistrate but also of the protagonist of this film. Both at different and crucial moments in their lives said: “I must continue”». This was repeated by escort agent Emanuele Filiberto who experienced his relationship with Judge Borsellino as that of a son at his father's side. Every day and every night. «Every time I was on duty and I worked the night shift he was on the balcony smoking. He always smoked, he smoked a lot. I nodded to him and he came back.”

For Emanuele Filiberto, Emanuela was a sister. «First at school in Trieste she helped me with my studies, then in Palermo she was assigned to the Freedom Commissariat and was responsible for patrolling the home of the Honorable Sergio Mattarella, now our Head of State. When Emanuela told me that she wanted to join the Escorts I almost felt like protecting her but she was a determined and strong woman.” And when she entered Judge Borsellino's escort she didn't tell her family. «He told us that he didn't escort dangerous people, he never mentioned Judge Borsellino, perhaps to keep us calm”, says his sister Claudia. «I didn't return to Palermo for 26 years, it hurt me too much to think that my sister had died there, on that road. Today when I want to feel her next to me again, I enter her room. I always find it there.”