Anna Momigliano

The Istituto dei Tumori, the hospital where he had been treated for cancer, confirmed his death.

Borrelli, who served in the Italian judiciary for 47 years, became a national symbol of the rule of law during the vast anti-corruption investigation known as Mani Pulite, or Clean Hands, which he led from 1992 to 1994.

The investigation led to 1,281 convictions and the indictment of a former prime minister, who fled the country. It put an end to Italy’s First Republic, the political order that took power after the fall of Fascism.

“Others would have given in to political pressure, but Saverio was one of a kind,” said Gherardo Colombo, a prominent Italian prosecutor who worked closely with Borrelli. He was, he added, “the right man, in the right place, at the right time.”

Borrelli, who was familiarly known by his middle name, Saverio, was born in Naples on April 12, 1930, to Manlio and Miette (Jappelli) Borrelli. After graduating from Liceo Michelangelo, a high school in Florence, Borrelli followed in the footsteps of his father, a judge, and studied law at Università degli Studi, also in Florence.

He became a public prosecutor in Milan in 1955 and climbed the ranks, becoming a chief prosecutor in 1988. He retired as general prosecutor in 2002.

Clean Hands began serendipitously in February 1992, when the owner of a business that cleaned public buildings reported to the police that a Socialist politician had demanded a bribe in return for a public contract. Borrelli’s team investigated and turned up a barrage of similar episodes. Taken together, they created a stunning portrait of how Italy’s political parties had systematically funded themselves.

What became known as Tangentopoli, or Bribesville, led to the collapse of most of Italy’s powerful parties. Politicians, government ministers and business leaders were among those caught in the dragnet.

The scandal culminated in the indictment in 1993 of the powerful Socialist leader and former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi. After being assailed under a hail of coins by outraged Italians, Craxi fled to Tunisia, where he died in self-imposed exile.

Borrelli and his associates revealed a corrupt system that had been standard operating procedure in Italy for decades.

“We were all guilty; we all closed our eyes when we should have kept them wide open,” Borrelli told the Rome-based daily newspaper La Repubblica in 1993.

But it was Borrelli’s willingness to put the guilty behind bars that made him and his disciples — some of whom entered politics — beloved by a deeply frustrated Italian public. He was aware that his power stemmed from the crowds that chanted his name and sent a blizzard of faxes to his office congratulating him.

Critics, though, say it was at that moment that Borrelli created a guilty-until-proved-innocent mentality in the Italian judiciary; a cult of personality, they say, developed around star prosecutors while regard for politicians and the establishment class cratered. Those critics trace the rise of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the anti-establishment populist parties in power today to Borrelli’s erosion of faith in professional politicians.

Berlusconi, in fact, filled the political vacuum created by Borrelli’s investigation when he first became prime minister in 1994. After the Clean Hands investigation concluded, Borrelli spent much of his time investigating Berlusconi, a brash former media tycoon and even once arrested Berlusconi’s brother. But his cases against him never stuck.

Borrelli is survived by his wife, Maria Laura Pini Prato; his son, Andrea, a judge; his daughter, Federica; and three grandchildren.

Once retired from the judiciary, Borrelli dedicated his life to his other passion, classical music, becoming the president of Milan Conservatory in 2007. He played piano, rode horses and hiked in the Alps, but, he told La Repubblica, without distinction in any of those endeavors.

“I cannot be a pro in everything,” he said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/world/europe/francesco-saverio-borrelli-dead.html" id="be4777f5-9451-3508-a109-051f4593df93">The New York Times</a>.

Francesco Saverio Borrelli, the former prosecutor whose landmark anti-corruption investigation in the early 1990s helped sweep away Italy’s ruling class and transform its politics, died Saturday in Milan. He was 89.

Francesco Saverio Borrelli, Scourge of Italy's Corrupt, Dies at 89

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Anna Momigliano

Articles written by the author

Francesco Saverio Borrelli, Scourge of Italy's Corrupt, Dies at 89