Court says Berlusconi paid for Mafia protection
Cosa Nostra’s protection “was not free”, the court said, adding that the media magnate was a victim of extortion.
“Berlusconi handed over conspicuous sums of money to the Mafia,” the supreme Court of Cassation said yesterday in a 146-page document explaining its decision last month to quash a trial against Marcello Dell’Utri, a Sicilian who worked for Berlusconi in those years.
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Vittorio Mangano, a Sicilian mobster later convicted of murder, lived in Mr Berlusconi’s home near Milan in the mid-1970s, allegedly to tend the horses. At the time Berlusconi had two small children with his first wife.
The document explains why the high court struck down a conviction against Dell’Utri, who is now a senator for Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party.
Palermo magistrates had failed to prove part of the case. A retrial will now be held.