Maria Mattarella, lawyer, general secretary of the Sicilian Region, daughter of the former President of the Region, Piersanti Mattarella, killed by the mafia on 6 January 1980, died today in Palermo.

Maria Mattarella, general secretary of the Sicilian Region and niece of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, died in Palermo. She was the second daughter of the President of the Sicilian Region Piersanti and survived the attack in which her father was killed on 6 January 1980. Mattarella had been fighting cancer for some time. Maria Mattarella died in her home in Palermo, surrounded by the affection of her children and family.

She was in the car when they killed her father. When the mafia murdered him on 6 January 1980, Piersanti Mattarella was driving his Fiat 132 and was about to go to mass together with his wife, Irma Chiazzese, at his side, his mother-in-law and his daughter Maria, then 18 years old, sitting in the back seat. A hitman approached the car and killed the President of the Sicilian Region with shots from a 38 calibre revolver through the window, which was shattered. Among the first to help him was his brother Sergio, who took him into his arms.

In April 2017, the regional government chaired by Rosario Crocetta appointed Maria Mattarella as a general advocate for the Presidency of the Sicilian Region. In December of the same year, the regional council, led by President Nello Musumeci, appointed her general secretary of the Region. “The task was not requested by anyone but was considered and determined only by the lawyer’s skills, by the esteem he enjoys in ‘within the public administration’, said the current Minister of Civil Protection and Maritime Policies. Graduated in law with honours in 1986 and has been a lawyer since 1995; the Region employed her in 1993, where she had always been part of the legislative and legal office, which she led until her new role. Her husband, Alessandro Argiroffi, a professor of political science in Palermo, died at 57 in 2015.

She leaves two sons, Giovanni and Piersanti. She married Alessandro Argiroffi, university professor of Philosophy of Law, who died prematurely in 2015. Former legislative head of the Region, she was baptised by her uncle, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella. The Head of State has been in Palermo since yesterday.