Salvatore Giuliano

Salvatore Giuliano (Sicilian: Turiddu or Sarvaturi Giulianu; 16 November 1922 – 5 July 1950) was an Italian bandit, who rose to prominence in the disorder that followed the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

In September of that year, Giuliano became an outlaw after shooting and killing a police officer who tried to arrest him for black market food smuggling, at a time when 70 percent of Sicily's food supply was provided by the black market.

He maintained a band of subordinates for most of his career.

He was a flamboyant, high-profile criminal, attacking the police at least as often as they sought him.

Giuliano was born on 16 November 1922, in Montelepre, a rural village in western Sicily, the fourth and youngest child of Salvatore Giuliano, Sr. and Maria Lombardo.

His parents were landed peasants who had spent some of their earlier lives in the United States where they had earned the money to buy their farmland.

Turi or Turridu – as he was known to distinguish him from his father – attended primary school in the village from the age of 10 to 13.

Although he was a good student, when his older brother Giuseppe was drafted into the Italian armed forces in 1935, he left school to help his father cultivate the family farm.

He soon tired of the drudgery of farm work, hired a substitute from the village to take his place, and began trading in olive oil, which brought additional income to the family.

Later in life he claimed that he quit school as much from youthful impulsiveness as from economic necessity.

The outbreak of World War II brought him opportunities in the form of jobs installing road barriers and telephone infrastructure.

He performed well, but was dismissed from both jobs after disputes with his bosses.

At the time of the Allied Invasion of Sicily in July 1943, Giuliano was once again trading in olive oil.

The most immediate trouble caused by the Allied invasion was the breakdown of government structures and the legal distribution of food.

Especially in the cities, up to 70% of the food was supplied through the black market, including small-scale operators to large scale, well-financed and well-organized operations.

With a horse brought home from the war by his brother and a Beretta handgun for protection, Giuliano was soon a participant in the black market.

The Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories (AMGOT) used the remnants of the previous fascist government, especially the Polizia and Carabinieri, to suppress the black market.

Since their pay was irregular and most of their income was bribes from major black marketeers, they focused their attention on minor operators.

On 2 September 1943, Giuliano was caught at a Carabinieri check point transporting two sacks of black market grain.

While trying to negotiate his release in return for surrendering the grain, Giuliano drew his gun when another black marketeer was apprehended.

When one of the officers raised his weapon, Giuliano shot and killed him.

He was shot in the back as he fled.

After the escape and an operation arranged by his family, he hid out in the family home.

On Christmas Eve 1943, the Carabinieri moved into Montelepre to apprehend Giuliano.

The operation included mass arrests—a dragnet.

He escaped, but angered by the dragnet, he shot and killed another officer.

Benefitting from his intimate knowledge of the surrounding mountainous terrain Giulano was able to evade the authorities, while visiting his family occasionally.

On 30 January 1944, he helped the escape of eight fellow villagers from the jail in Monreale.

Six of them joined him and formed a band that was able to expand operations.

With no income and outside of the law, Giuliano turned to banditry, and later extortion and kidnapping.

His exclusive target was the wealthy, partly from identification with poor peasants, but mostly for efficiency—the rich had more money.

Thanks to Sicily's omerta tradition, local peasants were reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement, and Giuliano made them his allies and effective co-conspirators.

Throughout his career he paid up to ten times the going market rate for his supplies to the locals.

They became good sources of intelligence about rich targets for his crimes, as well as law enforcement activity.

While Giuliano's core band was never larger than 20 men, peasants from Montelepre and nearby Giardinello would join him in the mountains temporarily for the excellent pay the bandit offered.

In addition, he was a local power-broker in Sicilian politics between 1945 and 1948, including his role as a nominal colonel for the Movement for the Independence of Sicily.

He and his band were held legally responsible for the Portella della Ginestra massacre, though there is some doubt about their role in the numerous deaths which occurred.

The widespread international press coverage he attracted made him an embarrassment to the Italian government, and throughout his banditry, up to 2,000 police and soldiers were deployed against him.

He was murdered on 5 July 1950.

The historian Eric Hobsbawm described him as the last of the "people's bandits" (à la Robin Hood) and the first to be covered in real time by modern mass media.