A Palermo court on Friday found
guilty former heads of the ROS security police Mario Mori,
Giuseppe De Donno and Antonio Subranni, former Forza Italia
Senator and Berlusconi aide Marcello Dell'Utri, and Mafia bosses
Leoluca Bagarella and Nino Cinà for holding talks between the
Italian State and the Sicilian Mafia aimed at stopping a wave of
bombings in the early 1990s.
Also found guilty was go-between Massimo Ciancimino, son of
late Mafia-convicted Palermo mayor Vito Ciancimino.
The guilty parties were sentenced to prison terms ranging
from eight to 28 years.
Former interior minister Nicola Mancino was cleared of
perjury.
"At last my suffering is over," said Mancino.
Former two-time Italian president and life Senator Giorgio
Napolitano told ANSA "Senator Mancino's acquittal from gross
accusations confirms what was already conclusively proven by the
Constitutional Court in its (judgement on) the conflict of
attribution between me and the Palermo prosecutors".
The sentence showed that Marcello Dell'Utri was the
go-between "between the Mafia requests and the Berlusconi
government which had just been installed (in May 1994)",
prosecutor Nino Di Matteo said after the sentence was handed
down.
"The sentence says that (former Berlusconi aide) Dell'Utri
acted as a transmission belt between the requests of Cosa Nostra
and the then Berlusconi government which had shortly before been
installed," he said.
"The verdict," Di Matteo added, "says that the relationship
does not end with Berlusconi the businessman but arrives at
Berlusconi the politician."
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