Berlusconi 'not suspect' in Florence Mafia bomb case

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Berlusconi 'not suspect' in Florence Mafia bomb case

Postby Jeff » Sun Nov 29, 2009 11:16 am

Berlusconi not suspect in Florence Mafia bomb case

Sat Nov 28, 2009

By Stephen Brown

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's Silvio Berlusconi is not being investigated in connection with a Mafia bomb attack in Florence in 1993, a court said on Saturday after reports that he was being probed on the evidence of a mobster-turned-witness.

The Italian media has buzzed with reports that Berlusconi and an associate would be linked to the Mafia by a mob informant in open court on Friday December 4. But he told a rally in Sardinia that such talk was "unfounded and insulting."

Right-wing daily Libero wrote on Saturday that the conservative leader and a senator who has been convicted of association with the Cosa Nostra, Marcello Dell'Utri, were being investigated. A magistrate heading the case denied the report.

"What Libero says is not true," the chief prosecutor for the city of Florence, Giuseppe Quatrocchi, told reporters.

The Sicilian Mafia declared war on the state in the early 1990s with bomb attacks in Milan and Rome and on Florence's Uffizi Gallery, one of Italy's main cultural treasures.

Five people died in the Florence car-bombing, part of a Mafia campaign to scare the state into relaxing the harsh prison regime served by convicted mobsters.

Mafiosi were jailed for the bombings but a court probe into possible links with leading politicians and business figures was dropped in 1998 -- then reopened this year based on new evidence from a jailed mobster turned state witness, Gaspare Spatuzza.

Spatuzza has told magistrates, in evidence reported widely in the media and confirmed by court sources, that Berlusconi and Dell'Utri had been mentioned to him in connection with the attacks by one of the Mafia bosses now serving multiple life sentences.


But that mobster, Giuseppe Graviano, was quoted by Ansa news agency casting doubt on the evidence, saying: "What does Gaspare Spatuzza know? He was just a house painter."

SPIRAL OF DRAMA

The premier's spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said late on Friday he could "rule out in the most decisive fashion" reports that Berlusconi would be notified formally he is under investigation. In Italy's legal system, such notification is meant to safeguard its recipient and does not mean charges will be brought.

Bonaiuti also noted that at the time of the attacks, media tycoon Berlusconi was still focussed on his media empire, had not entered politics and his Forza Italia party "was not yet born."

...

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews ... DN20091128
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Postby Jeff » Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:52 am

Mafia witness 'boasted of links to Silvio Berlusconi'

4 December 2009

A court in the Italian city of Turin has heard an allegation that a Sicilian Mafia boss convicted of 1990s bombings boasted of ties to Silvio Berlusconi.

Mafia informant Gaspare Spatuzza was giving evidence at the appeals trial of Marcello Dell'Utri, a co-founder of the Italian prime minister's party.

He said the Mafia boss had claimed to have Mr Berlusconi's support.

A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi, who denies the allegations, suggested the Mafia was trying to discredit the PM.

Mr Spatuzza, a prosecution witness, gave evidence from behind a screen in the courtroom, surrounded by several bodyguards.

Ten people were killed and dozens were injured in the 1993 attacks.

'Revenge'

The informant recounted an alleged meeting in 1994 with the Mafia leader, Giuseppe Graviano, who was later convicted along with his brother for the bombings in Rome, Milan and Florence.

He said that Graviano had boasted of his connections to media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, who was then on the cusp of his political career.

"Two names were mentioned, one of them was Berlusconi's," he told the court.

"I asked if he was the one from Channel Five and he told me 'yes'."

"Graviano told me that thanks to the seriousness of these people, we had the country in our hands," he added.

The spokesman for Mr Berlusconi, who is not formally linked to the case of his political associate, said the Mafia was attempting to get its revenge on Mr Berlusconi's administration for its fight against organised crime.

"It is completely logical that the Mafia would use its members to make statements against the prime minister of a government that has acted in a determined and concrete way against organised crime," Paolo Bonaiuti said, quoted by to Reuters news agency.

...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8395280.stm
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Postby jingofever » Sat Dec 05, 2009 4:00 pm

In the Financial Times' coverage of this story they write:

The prime minister’s office rejected the allegations, accusing Mr Spatuzza of seeking to sabotage the government’s crackdown on Cosa Nostra.


Their link goes to: Anti-Mafia laws will enrich mob, say critics. An excerpt:

But even as Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s billionaire prime minister, has declared his intention to go down in history as the leader who defeated the Mafia, his centre-right government is introducing a raft of legislation that anti-Mafia activists and prosecutors say will benefit the mob and undermine future projects along the lines of Il Gabbiano.

Il Gabbiano is one of several thousand similar social initiatives to have benefited from a 1982 law that established the crime of “Mafia conspiracy” and introduced powers for the state to carry out sweeping confiscations of Mafia-related assets.

So determined was Sicily’s Cosa Nostra to stop the law that it gunned down the chief architect, Pio La Torre, leader of the Italian Communist party in Sicily, and, four months later, General Carlo Dalla Chiesa, prefect of Palermo, and his wife.

Their deaths only served to hasten parliament’s approval of the law, and 12 years later a grassroots campaign that collected more than 1m signatures resulted in a second law providing for those assets, mostly property, to be assigned by a state agency for social purposes.

All that may soon change, however. An amendment contained in the government’s 2010 budget, currently passing through parliament, would result in the auctioning of many – but not all – seized Mafia assets to the highest bidder.

Promoters of the bill say the current system is too slow and costly to the state. Auctions would provide the cash-strapped government with funds, which could in turn be used for charitable purposes.

Libera, an anti-Mafia umbrella group led by Luigi Ciotti, a Catholic priest, argues instead that the proposed law would be a huge step backwards, allowing fronts for the Mafia to buy back their assets on the cheap. A new signature campaign is under way.
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Postby American Dream » Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:59 pm

Mafia 'number two' held in Italy


Two top Mafia figures, including the alleged second-in-command, have been arrested in Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has announced.

Gianni Nicchi, 28, was found in an apartment in Palermo, Sicily.

Police said they had also arrested another top leader, Gaetano Fidanzati, 74, on a street in Milan.

A day earlier a witness in a Mafia case had linked Mr Berlusconi to the crime gang - a charge he denied, emphasising that he was fighting the criminals.

Announcing the arrests to journalists, Mr Berlusconi said on Saturday: "This is the best response to all the slander made by irresponsible people who, by doing this, are only slinging mud" at Italy.

An ex-Mafia member had told a Turin court that mob chief Giuseppe Graviano had said Mr Berlusconi and a senator had helped the Mafia.

The top of the Mafia wanted list remains the alleged boss - Matteo Messina Denaro.

Series of arrests

Mr Berlusconi said his government "had done more than any other to fight organised crime in the last 20 years".

Nicchi, son of a convicted Mafia member, was sentenced to 18 years in jail in January 2008 for extortion and Mafia links.

Fidanzati was freed from prison in 2006 but has been wanted on suspicion of Mafia links since December 2008.

Anti-Mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso said: "If we carry on like this, there will be no names left on the list of 30 most-wanted criminals."

The latest arrests mean police have captured 17 of Italy's top 30 most-wanted suspected criminals in a few months.



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/e ... 397622.stm
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Postby American Dream » Sat Dec 05, 2009 9:03 pm

Tens of thousands march in Rome against Berlusconi
Sat Dec 5, 2009 6:13pm GMT
By Philip Pullella



ROME (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Italians chanting "resign, resign" marched through Rome Saturday demanding that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who they accused of corruption, step down.

The national demonstration, called "No B Day," was organised by grassroots organizations from around the country which ran appeals on the internet and social networking sites for Italians to flock to Rome to participate.

"I have a dream - Berlusconi in jail," the demonstrators chanted in unison as they marched the several kilometres (miles) from the capital's main train station to a square in front of St. John's Basilica.

The crowd, which police estimated at 90,000 but organisers said was larger, included actors and writers, among them Nobel Literature laureate Dario Fo.

"This a day of democracy, a day that shows that the country can come together to build an alternative and most of all to tell Berlusconi to go," said Antonio di Pietro, a ex anti-graft magistrate who heads the opposition Italy of Values party.

"There are people from all over the country here, and even from abroad with one message: Berlusconi has to go!. Berlusconi has to be treated like every other citizen. He has to face trial," Di Pietro said.

Berlusconi faces several corruption trials after he lost his immunity from prosecution in October when Italy's highest court ruled that a law passed by his government was unconstitutional.

That law was one of several critics said were enacted to help him avoid corruption trials.

CORRUPTION TRIAL

In one case, Berlusconi is charged with paying British lawyer David Mills a $600,000 (364, 300 British pounds) bribe in 1997 from secret funds held by his family-owned broadcasting empire Mediaset to withhold incriminating details of business dealings.

Another case involves the acquisition of TV rights by Mediaset, which prosecutors say bought the rights at an inflated price from two offshore companies controlled by Berlusconi. Berlusconi is accused of tax fraud and false accounting.

Last month his centre-right lawmakers proposed a reform of Italy's cumbersome judicial system but critics say he is just looking out for his own interests because the reform would effectively apply the statute of limitations to his cases.

Berlusconi, who denies all the accusations against him, has dismissed the opposition as "communists" with whom dialogue is impossible and has accused magistrates of being leftists bent on destroying him.

"Berlusconi must face trial," Salvatore Borsellino, brother of anti-Mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino, who was killed by a Mafia bomb in 1992, told the crowd.

One demonstrator carried a placard based on the Monopoly board game: It read "Go to Jail -- Game Over."
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Re: Berlusconi 'not suspect' in Florence Mafia bomb case

Postby jingofever » Thu Mar 18, 2010 2:37 pm

Silvio Berlusconi in ‘protection deal with mafia’:

THE billionaire Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, once met a leading mafia godfather to ask for protection, according to testimony gathered over several years by crime prosecutors.

Mafia informants claim the meeting took place in Milan in 1974, when Berlusconi was already a wealthy entrepreneur, at the offices of his property company. The informers say Berlusconi met Stefano Bontade, then one of the mafia’s most powerful bosses, because he feared for his family’s safety at a time when Italy was plagued by a wave of high-profile kidnappings.

Francesco Di Carlo, one of Bontade’s henchmen who is now in jail, told prosecutors that he was at the meeting. He claims Berlusconi asked for help to ensure that neither he nor his children would be abducted by other mafia clans.

According to the henchman’s testimony, Bontade gave his word that he would personally ensure Berlusconi’s safety. In return Berlusconi told the mafia godfather that he was “at his disposal, for anything”.

According to anti-mafia prosecutors, the meeting was arranged by Marcello Dell’Utri, a close friend and business partner of Berlusconi. Dell’Utri later played an important role in founding the tycoon’s first political party, Forza Italia, which won the 1994 election and took Berlusconi to power.

Now a senator, Dell’Utri was sentenced in 2004 to nine years in prison for aiding and abetting the mafia. He denies the charges and is appealing — and is still a free man under the Italian judicial system. He and Berlusconi deny they met Bontade. But magistrates believe Di Carlo’s testimony, which was backed by another mafia boss who became an informant.

“In our view Dell’Utri had very close contact with the mafia. He acted as an ambassador for the mafia, representing its interests among Italy’s wealthy entrepreneurs,” said Domenico Gozzo, a key member of the prosecution team in the Dell’Utri trial.

“Instead of turning to the police, Berlusconi turned to Dell’Utri when he became worried about security. He asked his friend to find a solution. Dell’Utri did so during a meeting with the then mafia head, Stefano Bontade, in which Berlusconi took part. Bontade promised to send a person to protect Berlusconi and his family. Why? Because Berlusconi became of interest to the Cosa Nostra, first as an entrepreneur and later as a politician.”

Shortly after the alleged meeting with Bontade, who was killed in a mafia turf war in 1981, Berlusconi hired Vittorio Mangano, a mafia member.

Mangano’s official job was to run the tycoon’s luxury estate at Arcore, outside Milan. He lived at the 145-room villa for two years, driving Berlusconi’s children to school.

Prosecutors allege that Mangano was the man Bontade provided to guard the tycoon and his family, thus sending a signal to the other clans that Berlusconi was under the direct protection of the mafia. Berlusconi and Dell’Utri both claim they did not know that Mangano was a criminal. However, he was arrested twice while working for Berlusconi.

“Mangano was already a convicted criminal when Berlusconi took him in,” said Gozzo.

In 2000 Mangano, who was serving a sentence for drug trafficking, was found guilty of double murder. He died before his appeal could be heard. Berlusconi and Dell’Utri have since described him as a hero because he refused to make false claims against them.

“Mangano was a person who behaved very well with us,” said Berlusconi in 2008.

“He then had some problems with the law but I’m not aware of him having ever been found guilty for good,” he added, referring to the fact that Mangano’s appeal was never heard.

The prime minister has never been charged with mafia association. Gozzo and other magistrates sought to question him about Dell’Utri, his alleged mafia links and some of the funds invested in his businesses, but Berlusconi chose to remain silent, citing his right to do so under Italian law, It has also been alleged by informants that the mafia backed Forza Italia. The claim was made again last December by Gaspare Spatuzza, a jailed mafia hitman who killed 40 people and disposed of a rival by dissolving him in acid. He told prosecutors that Berlusconi and Dell’Utri had contact with the Graviano brothers, two mafia bosses.

Berlusconi, 73, has angrily rejected all allegations of mafia links and claims to be the victim of a conspiracy orchestrated by left-wing judges. He said recently that no Italian government had done more than his to combat the mafia.

“From the moment when Dell’Utri brought Mangano in, he put Berlusconi in the hands of the mafia,” said Marco Travaglio, one of Italy’s leading investigative reporters.

“Cosa Nostra is not like a taxi where you jump on, pay for the trip, get off and say goodbye. Once you are on you can no longer get off. Berlusconi is terrified that his past will catch up with him.”
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Re: Berlusconi 'not suspect' in Florence Mafia bomb case

Postby Stephen Morgan » Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:47 am

Well we know he was in P2. And we know other Italian PMs have been in with the mafia, and been convicted.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible. -- Lawrence of Arabia
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