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Another important social sector asking for complete information is the Justice; international well-known facts
and world-wide notorious mysteries require efficient information media which can be provided by computer
networks.
Particularly, people accessing the original proceedings of high-profile trials through the networks can follow
the trials in progress, read the public prosecutors and defence lawyers acts, and eventually get an idea by
themselves rather than by the newspapers, which report filtered stories. Of course, the newspapers role in
informing people is strongly important, as long as people can easily compare different points of view with the
original trial facts. Consequently, it is extremely important to integrate original proceedings and extracts from
the newspapers in the same documentation system.
The previous considerations convinced us to set up two Web sites on two trials against the Mafia.
The aim of this paper is to describe them and to highlight the social aspects of our initiative. In addition, we
have designed a Distance Education course based on the two sites for University Law students, and we have set
up a virtual classroom with students across the country. Finally, design principles of this course are reported.
The Trial Web Sites
During the past two years, two web sites regarding two extremely dramatic Italian trials have been set up at the
Istituto di Tecnologie Didattiche e Formative in Palermo.
The first Web site was set up in April 1995, on the occasion of the beginning of the trial of some Sicily's Mafia
members accused of murdering Giovanni Falcone, a crusading anti-Mafia judge, along with his wife and three
bodyguards.
The web site, which has been named the "Praesidium Falcone", was set up in order to allow people all around
the World, and mainly in Italy, to follow the trial in its evolution through original acts and different opinions.
To this end, we got permission by the trial Public Prosecutors to publish in Internet the original and complete
documentation. In addition, we included some articles from national and local newspapers in the Web site.
However, the World Wide Web is not simply an attractive publishing space; in fact, it has proved to be an
extremely effective tool to implement interactive information systems, thus satisfying the more and more
pressing needs of people to play an active role in public life. For this reason, we decided to allow users to send
messages of solidarity to the victims' relatives and to the judges who are fighting against the Mafia; these
messages are automatically published in a specific area of the site.
The second web site concerns the People vs. Giulio Andreotti trial. The trial of the country's seven-time Prime
Minister, charged with conspiring with Sicily's Mafia, is a very important trial, because for the first time in
Italy, Public Prosecutors publicly denounces a strict connection between the Sicily's Mafia and the Italian
political management..
Because of the fame of the Italian politician, the Public Prosecutors' thesis has shared the popular opinion in
pro and against the former Prime Minister. Consequently, an interactive section in the Web, like the one in the
Praesidium Falcone , would have been easily transformed in an exploited section, with many and useless
'flames'. On the contrary, the Capaci trial is against well-known criminals (people already condemned for other
murders and criminal affairs); consequently, the popular opinion is unanimous against the accused, and it
seemed sensible to create an interactive section to allow users to report their feelings about the murder and the
trial.
Yet, in order to let users participate somehow at the Andreotti trial and to smooth the dramatic power of the
relative site, we preferred to activate an interactive section for this site where we ask only for satirical
illustrations of the former Prime Minister.
A second important difference between the two Web sites concerns the documentation in them. As far as the
Praesidium Falcone is concerned, we obtained the murder reconstruction and all the acts presented by the
Public Prosecutors when the trial begun. As regards the Andreotti trial, we got formal authorisation to post the
official proceedings on the Net by the Court; in this case, it is extremely significant to publish information