Reply To: So apparently…

[madamadam]

From Wikipedia: (For reference, "Forza Italia" is the Italian centre-right party founded by Berlusconi himself in December 1993.)

[u][b]Links to the Mafia[/b][/u]

Possible connections of Berlusconi to the Sicilian Mafia are also mentioned. The accusations arise mostly from the hiring of Vittorio Mangano, charged for Mafia association, as a gardner and stable man at Berlusconi's Villa San Martino in Arcore, a small town near Milan. It was Berlusconi's friend Marcello Dell'Utri who introduced Mangano to Berlusconi in 1973. Mangano's real job is alleged to have been to deter kidnappers from targeting the tycoon's children. Berlusconi denied any ties to the Mafia.

Heated debate on this issue emerged again in 2004 when Dell'Utri, the manager of Berlusconi's publishing company Publitalia 80 and a Forza Italia senator was sentenced to nine years by a Palermo court on charge of "external association to the Mafia", a sentence on which Berlusconi refused to comment.

In 1996, a Mafia supergrass, Salvatore Cancemi, declared that Berlusconi and Dell'Utri were in direct contact with Salvatore Riina, head of the Sicilian Mafia in the 1980s and 90s. Cancemi disclosed that Fininvest, through Marcello Dell'Utri and mafioso Vittorio Mangano, had paid Cosa Nostra 200 million lire (100 000 euro) annually. The alleged contacts, according to Cancemi, were to lead to legislation favourable to Cosa Nostra, in particular the harsh 41-bis prison regime. The underlying premise was that Cosa Nostra would support Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in return for political favours. After a two-year investigation, magistrates closed the inquiry without charges. They did not find evidence to corroborate Cancemi’s allegations. Similarly, a two-year investigation, also launched on evidence from Cancemi, into Berlusconi’s alleged association with the Mafia was closed in 1996.

According to yet another mafia turncoat, Antonino Giuffrè – arrested on 16 April 2002 – the Mafia turned to Berlusconi's Forza Italia party to look after the Mafia's interests, after the decline in the early 1990s of the ruling party Christian Democracy, whose leaders in Sicily looked after the Mafia's interests in Rome. The Mafia's fall out with the Christian Democrats became clear when Salvo Lima was killed in March 1992. "The Lima murder marked the end of an era," Giuffrè told the court. "A new era opened with a new political force on the horizon which provided the guarantees that the Christian Democrats were no longer able to deliver. To be clear, that party was Forza Italia."

Dell'Utri was the go-between on a range of legislative efforts to ease pressure on mafiosi in exchange for electoral support, according to Giuffrè. "Dell'Utri was very close to Cosa Nostra and a very good contact point for Berlusconi," he said. Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano told Giuffrè that they "were in good hands" with Dell'Utri, who was a "serious and trustworthy person". Provenzano stated that the Mafia's judicial problems would be resolved within 10 years after 1992, thanks to the undertakings given by Forza Italia.[citation needed]

Giuffrè said that Berlusconi himself used to be in touch with Stefano Bontade, a top Mafia boss, in the mid 1970s. At the time Berlusconi still was just a wealthy real estate developer and started his private television empire. Bontade visited Berlusconi's villa in Arcore through his contact Vittorio Mangano. Berlusconi's lawyer dismissed Giuffrè's testimony as "false" and an attempt to discredit the Prime Minister and his party. Giuffrè said that other Mafia representatives who were in contact with Berlusconi included the Palermo Mafia bosses Filippo Graviano and Giuseppe Graviano. The Graviano brothers allegedly treated directly with Berlusconi through the business-man Gianni Ienna, somewhere between September/October 1993. The alleged pact with the Mafia fell apart in 2002. Cosa Nostra had achieved nothing. There were no revisions of Mafia trials, no changes in the law of asset seizures and no changes in the harsh prison laws (41 bis).

Dell'Utri's lawyer, Enrico Trantino, dismissed Giuffrè’s allegations as an "anthology of hearsay". He said Giuffrè had perpetuated the trend that every new turncoat would attack Dell'Utri and the former Christian Democrat prime minister Giulio Andreotti in order to earn money and judicial privileges.

[b]Also:[/b]

Mr Berlusconi has been tried in Italian courts in several cases. In all of them he was either acquitted by a court of first instance or on appeal, or when proceedings came to a halt because too much time had elapsed between the alleged offence and the trial. Mr Berlusconi has always been able to afford top lawyers, and during his period in office as prime minister managed to make important legislative changes which favoured his personal business interests.

Yeah.