In late 1989 Francesco Marino Mannoia, turning state's evidence, claimed that one of the reasons for Giovanni Bontade's murder was that statement in which, breaching his oath to the mafia, he had revealed its existence (Repubblica, December 7, 1989). It was the first time the term we had publicly been used by a mafioso in that sense. In the past some kind of conscious collective identity had been assumed, But now, for the first time, it was acknowledged and defended. Nobody had been formally charged. Only the newspaper headlines proclaimed: "The mafia murders a child to get at his parents" (La Stampa, October 9, 1986). but the men on trial recognized themselves in that accusation and denied it. They were in jail, and hence technically innocent of Claudio's murder; but they knew that everybody knew that "we" could reach beyond those bars, and for once dropped their guard.

XREF: Connects to the history of Italian mafia culture and the code of silence (omertà).

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 266