Italy: Andreotti faces murder charges
01 March 1999
Giulio Andreotti, seven times Italian Prime Minister, is facing trial accused of being the linchpin in relations between the Mafia and the Italian political establishment following accusations by Mafia turncoats. Roberto Scarpinato, a Palermo prosecutor, has claimed that the Cosa Nostra's military power and Andreotti's political power constituted a "deadly war machine" maintained through force and intimidation. On April 8 he asked for a 15-year prison sentence and for the court to bar Andreotti, presently occupying a seat as senator for life, from public office, claiming "continued and aggravated Mafia association",
Andreotti is accused of taking an active part in the mob's criminal activities which include murders, bombings and extortion. The prosecutor stressed that he provided a "permanent", not "occasional" contribution, as part of an alliance in which he benefitted from Cosa Nostra's ability to influence Sicilian social and political life. Tommaso Buscetta, a former boss who became the first high-profile Mafia supergrass, answered judge Falcone's questions about the links between the Mafia and the political establishment by saying that if he spoke of these things he would be considered a madman and the judge would be killed. Falcone was killed when a tunnel was blown up in Capaci (Sicily) on May 23 1992, and Borsellino, another judge from the anti-Mafia pool, was killed outside his home by a car bomb in Palermo on July 19. It was only after these events that Buscetta revealed Andreotti's name.
The testimonies accusing Andreotti include eye witness accounts from Mafiosi, particularly Francesco Marino Mannoia and Balduccio Di Maggio who claim they saw Andreotti meeting Mafia bosses, and the latter added that Andreotti and Toto Riina even kissed each other. Andreotti's defence has vociferously questioned the reliability of these witnesses throughout the proceedings, adding that "It is easy for the pubblico ministero [Director of public prosecutions] to ask for sentences...when the contrary evidence is ignored...and facts which have been shown to be non-existent are considered certain, and statements which have been proved to be false are treated as truthful."
Andreotti's position has been further undermined by the trial in Perugia where the former Prime Minister is accused of ordering the murder of journalist Mino Pecorelli 20 years ago, to prevent him from releasing damaging information. Prosecutors are expected to ask for a life sentence for Andreotti after claiming that he was the clear beneficiary of the murder, that the murder could not have been organised without his knowledge, and after Mafia collaborators' revelations that the shooting of Pecorelli was related to damaging information he had acquired concerning the kidnap and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. He allegedly hired two hitmen - Michelangelo La Barbera, a gangster, and Massimo Carminati, a right-wing extremist - with the collaboration of a politician, Claudio Vitalone and two Mafia bosses, to shoot Pecorelli as he left his office in Rome on May 20 1979.
La Repubblica 9.4.99; Guardian 9.4.99.<