Berlusconi’s Political Party 'Forza Italia Born from Mafia Talks', Informant Reveals
The party launched by Primi Minister Silvio Berlusconi originated from talks between Cosa Nostra and the state, according to what a prosecutor's witness claimed Monday. The informant is Massimo Ciancimino, son of the late Palermo mafioso Mayor, and the accused was made during the hearing of the trial of former Mario Mori, the head of a special section of the military police body Carabinieri who is accused of having favored the Mafia.
Following is the news reported by ANSA.it, the Italian Associated Press Agency:
Ciancimino alleges that Mori and his father, Vito, were go-betweens in negotiations between the Mafia and the state in the 1990s to stop a bombing campaign by Provenzano's co-boss Salvatore (Toto') Riina that claimed the lives of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. On Monday, he claimed Berlusconi's Forza Italia was a ''product'' of those negotiations, which also looked at where to invest the Mafia's ''political capital'' after the Clean-Hands scandals toppled the powerful Christian Democrat and Italian Socialist parties in the early 1990s.
During the hearing, Ciancimino produced a note supposedly written by the Mafia superboss to Berlusconi's long-time aide, Marcello Dell'Utri, containing a veiled threat directed at Berlusconi's son meant as a warning not to renege on their agreement.
The note also supposedly showed the Mafia's interest in Berlusconi's Mediaset television network, saying the premier ''ought to place it at our disposal''.
''My father told me that this note was an aspect of negotiations that had been going on for years,'' Ciancimino claimed.
The letter was supposedly co-addressed to Berlusconi himself with an extra line suggesting that Provenzano was running out of patience.
Ciancimino later claimed he'd been confronted by a secret service agent in 2006, while under house arrest for money laundering charges, who told him not to talk about the state's alleged negotiations with the Mafia.
He said that since he began collaborating with the police, he had received a number of death threats.
(From: ANSA:IT)
Florence News - b0.02.08.18.48
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