Former Berlusconi aide Marcello Dell'Utri was handed over to Interpol agents and extradited from Lebanon to Italy to face a seven-year Mafia conviction on Friday. His plane touched down at Rome Fiumicino early Friday morning amid high security and anti-Mafia agents served him notice that he must serve jail time before he was taken to Rome's Rebibbia prison in an ambulance. Dell'Utri, a former close aide of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's, left Italy without authorisation and went to Beirut before the Supreme Court last month upheld a seven-year jail term against him for the Mob ties, making the conviction definitive.
Dell'Utri, 72, is the former head of the advertising arm of Berlusconi's business empire and is credited with creating the three-time premier's centre-right party, Forza Italia, in 1993, six months before it swept to victory in general elections.
At the original trial in Palermo, the former Senator was found to have sealed "a pact of protection" with Cosa Nostra for Berlusconi at a meeting in May 1974.
The court said that meeting "formed the genesis of the relationship that linked the businessman (Berlusconi) and the Mafia with Dell'Utri's mediation".
Berlusconi employed a Mafia boss and killer recommended by Dell'Utri, the late Vittorio Mangano, as an stable manager in the mid 1970s. It is alleged that this appointment was to protect his children from the kind of kidnappings that were then rampant in Italy.
Dell'Utri's lawyers said the case against him was built on testimony from ex-Cosa Nostra informants that lacked credibility.
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