Pentito (Italian pronunciation: [penˈtiːto]; "he who has repented", plural pentiti) designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations. The government passed legislation creating the judicial category pentiti to fight terrorism in the 1970s, during the "Years of Lead". Their correct technical name in Italian is collaboratori di giustizia (collaborators with justice). In the wake of the Maxi Trial in 1986-87, and after the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, the term was more often used for former members of the Sicilian Mafia who abandoned their organization and started helping in investigations.
In exchange for the information they deliver, pentiti receive shorter sentences for their crimes, in some cases even freedom. In the Italian judicial system, pentiti can obtain personal protection, a new name, and some money to start a new life in another place, possibly abroad.
Let the blood spill, between my broken teeth
The desert landscapes stretch on the infinite horizon
Monotonous and wild
Unchain the wrath, naked skin tries to stay closed
Under the atrocious lashing sounds
Step by step appear the lugubrious furrows
Drawn by the born rivers
Their streams dig again and again, corrode the ground
Torturing the wide expanses
The sky turns black, the surfaces become quivering
The fleshy mountains like alive proudly rise
Cut in their middle, pierced under the rock
Opening the labyrinths of human thoughts
Lacerated plains by barbaric passages
Underground flows and plaintive whispers
Floods and earthquakes
Lightning strikes, traumatizes and signs the eternity with a forgotten name
Beneath a blinding light
A blinding light
The ground separates, cut in several places
The imprint of hostile elements is close to be made
Break
I clench my jaws and I bite as strong as I can
I let the blood spill between my broken teeth
Lava currents drown
The fissures
And spread the running disease
Hidden under indelible scars
Damages are made of a delicious disharmony
Like a bow sliding at random on a out of tune violin
Shapeless and devastating magmas search for the path of the surface
Fighting hopeless not to be broken
The desert landscapes stretch on the infinite horizon
Monotonous and wild
Unchain the wrath, naked skin tries to stay closed
Under the atrocious lashes
Lava currents drown
The fissures
And spread the running disease