(ANSA) - Caserta, November 17 - A court in Caserta on
Thursday sentenced a former economy undersecretary from Silvio
Berlusconi's now-defunct People of Freedom (PdL) party, Nicola
Cosentino, to nine years in prison and banned him from holding
public office for life for colluding with the Neapolitan Camorra
mafia.
Cosentino - who was elected MP four times between
1996-2008 as a member of the PdL - sentenced to four years in
prison in June this year for corrupting a prison guard.
The former MP was also involved in the so-called Eco4 trial
on alleged Camorra infiltration into Caserta-area consortiums.
He was arrested in April 2014 along with 12 others for
alleged extortion and unfair competition in favor of his family
petrol pump business in the southern Campania region.
Also on his rap sheet is a March 2013 arrest on suspicion
of collusion with the powerful Casalesi clan of the Neapolitan
Camorra mafia, whose death threats have forced anti-mafia writer
Roberto Saviano into 24-hour police protection.
Cosentino gets nine years for mafia
Ex-PdL bigwig banned from public office for life