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)",
anti-Mafia 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."
Last year Di Matteo said that the reason he was set to leave
Palermo after 18 years is that he was no longer able to do his
job properly in the Sicilian capital.
"Recently I was not put in a position to be able to work full
time on highly delicate investigations that require total
commitment," said Di Matteo, who went on to join the National
anti-Mafia Directorate (DNA) in Rome.
"My decision is not a surrender. I made a transfer request to
the National anti-Mafia Directorate to try to continue to make a
contribution to the fight against the mafia".
Di Matteo, 57, however remained the prosecutor in a trial
into the alleged talks between the State and the Mafia to stop
the early 1990s bombing campaign.
In that trial he clashed with former president Napolitano
over wiretaps of conversations with Mancino.
The wiretaps were destroyed after the Constitutional Court
ruling.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
