(ANSA) - Palermo, September 25 - A Palermo court on Thursday reiterated that President Giorgio Napolitano must give evidence at a trial into allegations the Italian State held negotiations with the Sicilian Mafia in the early 1990s. The court last year upheld a request from prosecutors for Napolitano to be called as a witness, but some lawyers involved in the case had requested that this decision be reversed after the head of State wrote a letter to the judges, saying he had nothing of relevance to testify.
"I have no difficulty in giving testimony - according to procedures to be defined - on the circumstances in the case in question," the president said Thursday. He said he would do so "as soon as possible"
The court said that, as there is no specific law regulating a president giving testimony, it will apply Article 502 of the criminal code, which states that witnesses can give evidence from home if they are unable to attend a hearing.
No date has been set for Napolitano's testimony. Members of the public and the accused will not be able to attend the hearing at which the testimony is given, although defence lawyers and the prosecution will, the court said. The accused include jailed Cosa Nostra bosses Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano and ex Senator Marcello Dell'Utri, a former top aide of Silvio Berlusconi's who is also in prison after a definitive seven-year sentence for Mafia links.
In October 2013 Napolitano told the court in the letter that he had "no useful knowledge to report to the trial".
"I would be happy to be able to do so if I really had something to report," the president added.
In May 2013 the Palermo court ruled that Napolitano could not be questioned on information found in wiretaps that were destroyed after the president successfully petitioned at the Constitutional Court that prosecutors had exceeded their powers in keeping them.
This means he cannot be asked to talk about four conversations he had with Nicola Mancino, a former interior minister and Senate Speaker, between November 2011 and May 2012.
Mancino has been charged along with 11 other people in relation to alleged negotiations to stop a series of Cosa Nostra bomb attacks in the early 1990s that claimed the lives of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992, among other people.
Mancino is accused of perjury.
He denies this.
Prosecutors want to ask Napolitano about a letter he received in June 2012 from a legal advisor, Loris D'Ambrosio.
In that letter D'Ambrosio, who died shortly after writing it in July 2012, said he had always acted correctly, while expressing fears that there may have been negotiations between the State and Cosa Nostra two decades ago.
The president said he had had no communication from D'Ambrosio that was relevant to the case.
In addition to Napolitano, the Palermo court has also accepted prosecution requests to call up a host of other witnesses, including Senate Speaker and former national anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso.