Berlusconi 'placed Italy in the hands of Mafia', says hitman
Italian PM mentioned in meeting with crime boss
A convicted hitman-turned-supergrass told a court yesterday that Silvio Berlusconi has had ties to the Mafia, and that a crime boss once boasted that this relationship had "put the country in our hands".
Gaspare Spatuzza was testifying in Turin in the appeal of Marcello Dell'Utri, an associate of Mr Berlusconi and co-founder of the Forza Italia party. He is appealing against a nine-year sentence for association with the Mafia. Mr Berlusconi and Dell'Utri deny involvement with the Mafia.
Spatuzza told the court about a meeting in Rome in 1994 with Giuseppe Graviano, a godfather from Palermo, Sicily, who was later convicted with his brother Filippo for bombings in Rome, Milan and Florence. "Two names were mentioned, one of them was Berlusconi's," he said.
"Graviano told me that thanks to the seriousness of these people we had the country in our hands." He had referred specifically to Mr Berlusconi, giving the other name as Dell'Utri.
Paolo Bonaiuti, the spokesman for the prime minister, said: "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."
Spatuzza, who is serving a life sentence for several murders, told the court that in 1993 he was told by Graviano that a deal had been struck with Mr Berlusconi that would provide unspecified benefits to the Mafia. Mr Berlusconi, who made his fortune in property development, television and advertising, entered politics a few months later by creating Forza Italia. He won his first term in 1994.
The prime minister claims that left-wing magistrates and judges are making false charges to bring down his government and attack his Mediaset business empire. Last week he said that the allegations, made previously by Spatuzza to Palermo magistrates, but not made in public until yesterday, were infamous.
Effort
He said: "If there is a person who by nature, sensitivity, mentality, background, culture and political effort is very far from the Mafia, it is me."
Dell'Utri, whose hearing continues, told reporters at the court: "It's all false. And of course Berlusconi is completely calm about it too. He's more afraid of his wife than Spatuzza".
Mr Bonaiuti said that the government had been arresting mafiosi at the rate of eight per day and had so far confiscated about 10,000 criminal properties worth €5.3bn.
In an unrelated case, a Milan court is trying Mr Berlusconi over allegations that he bribed David Mills, his former British tax adviser, with $600,000 to withhold evidence about his business dealings during corruption trials in the 1990s.
The opening hearing should have been held yesterday but judges accepted that the prime minister's official duties, which included a cabinet meeting, were a legitimate reason to postpone the trial. (© The Times, London)
- Richard Owen in Perugia
Irish Independent
