(ANSA) - Palermo, May 6 - Prosecutors on Monday requested
that Calogero Mannino, a former minister with the now-defunct
Christian Democrat (DC) party, be sentenced to nine years in
jail in a case regarding alleged State-Mafia negotiations.
Mannino is accused of threatening a political body of the
State in relation to alleged talks with the Sicilian Mafia in a
bid to stop a bloody bombing campaign that claimed the lives of
crusading anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo
Borsellino in 1992 and killed 10 people and damaged art sites in
Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993.
The former minister was acquitted at the first-instance trial
into the case.
He chose a fast-track procedure and his case has being heard
separately from those of other defendants.
Mannino described the prosecutors' request as "groundless".
Nine-year term requested for ex minister Mannino
Former Christian Democrat bigwig on trial over State-Mafia talks