– had been in league with Giuliano and denounced Scelba for allowing Messana to remain in office. Later documents would prove the accusation. Li Causi suspected a campaign against the left and linked it with the crisis in the national government (under Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi), which would lead to the expulsion of the communists and socialist from government, as well as to prevent the left from entering the regional government. On 30 May 1947, Giuseppe Alessi, became the first president of the Sicilian region with the support of the centre right and the same day De Gasperi announced his new centrist government, who had been in the national union governments since 1945. Challenging Giuliano Speaking at Portella della Ginestra on the second anniversary of the massacre, Li Causi publicly called on Giuliano to name names. He received a written reply from the bandit leader: Li Causi responded by reminding Giuliano that he would almost certainly be betrayed: "Don't you understand that Scelba will have you killed." Giuliano again replied, hinting at the powerful secrets that he possessed: Salvatore Giuliano was killed on 5 July 1950, when the hearings for the trial against Giuliano's captured associates started in Viterbo, near Rome. He always denied that there had been anyone behind him who had ordered the killing. However, his lieutenant Pisciotta and other witnesses claimed that a few days before the massacre, on April 27, 1947, Giuliano had received a letter, which he destroyed immediately after reading it. He told his gang: "Boys, the hour of our liberation is at hand." According to the witnesses, the letter demanded the massacre at Portella della Ginestra in exchange for liberty for all of the gang. Viterbo trial The trial against the perpetrators for the massacre started in the summer of 1950 in Viterbo. Scelba was again said to have been involved in the plot to carry out the massacre, but the accusations were often contradictionary or vague. In the end the judge concluded that no higher authority had ordered the massacre, and that the Giuliano band had acted autonomously. At the Viterbo trial Pisciotta said: Pisciotta also claimed that he had killed the bandit Salvatore Giuliano in his sleep by arrangement with Scelba. However, there was no evidence that Scelba had had any relationship with Pisciotta. At the trial for the Portella della Ginestra massacre, Gaspare Pisciotta said: Witnesses disappear Pisciotta was