Berlusconi ally found guilty of Mafia collusion

by Tony Barber

The ghosts of Italy’s mafia-infested political history returned to centre stage
this weekend after a business associate and political ally of Silvio Berlusconi,
prime minister, was convicted of collusion with the Sicilian Mafia.

Marcello Dell’Utri, 63, was sentenced to nine years in prison on Saturday by
a court in Palermo, Sicily’s capital, after a trial in which the main evidence
came from crime bosses who testified for the prosecution.

"This is a sentence that will please my enemies and make my friends cry," Mr
Dell’Utri said, adding that Mr Berlusconi had telephoned him immediately after
the verdict in a show of solidarity.

Mr Dell’Utri is a member of the Senate, the upper house of parliament, for Forza Italia, Mr Berlusconi’s political party. He met Mr Berlusconi at university in Milan and co-founded Forza Italia in 1993-94 after serving for a decade as managing director of Publitalia, the advertising arm of the premier’s business empire.

Mr Dell’Utri is appealing against the verdict, which was delivered less than 24 hours after Mr Berlusconi, in a separate trial in Milan, was cleared of charges that he bribed judges to influence business deals.

Supporters and opponents of Mr Berlusconi contested the political significance of the conviction. Forza Italia politicians described the verdict as scandalous and emphasised that, under Italian law, no conviction is definitive until a two-stage appeals process is exhausted. Adversaries recalled that Mr Dell’Utri’s conviction came only one year after Cesare Previti, Mr Berlusconi’s former personal lawyer and defence minister, was found guilty of corruption.

"On one side, there’s Previti, condemned for corrupting magistrates. On the other side, there’s Dell’Utri, condemned for Mafia association. In the middle, there’s Berlusconi, saved by a statute of limitations," said Antonio Di Pietro, a left-leaning former prosecutor who spearheaded investigations into corruption in public life in the early 1990s.

Mr Berlusconi was acquitted of bribing judges to influence a corporate takeover battle in 1985-86. On a second charge of involvement in bribing a Rome judge in 1991, the Milan court applied a statute of limitations, which in Italian law means Mr Berlusconi has a clean record. Mr Previti was convicted in November 2003 of paying the 1991 bribe and sentenced to five years in prison. He is appealing against the verdict and, like Mr Dell’Utri, is at liberty until the appeals process is concluded.

Nando Dalla Chiesa, a senator for the moderate centre-left Margherita party, said: "In a normal country, it could be a problem that the prime minister’s righthand man has been convicted of a crime of this type. But this is not a normal country."

Mr Dell’Utri’s trial resurrected the troubling question of how much credibility to attach to the testimony of pentiti, or mafiosi who have turned state’s evidence. The prosecution’s case rested heavily on the testimony of more than 30 pentiti, as well as intercepted telephone conversations and Mr Dell’Utri’s diary entries, all of which prosecutors said pointed to his involvement with Cosa Nostra since the 1970s.

One important witness for the prosecution was Antonio Giuffrè, a high-ranking Cosa Nostra boss, who alleged Mr Dell’Utri served as the mafia’s "main point of contact" with Forza Italia.

Forza Italia emerged as the dominant political party in Sicily in the 1990s, replacing the now defunct Christian Democrats.

Prosecutors said they were not implying that Mr Berlusconi was involved in Mr Dell’Utri’s alleged crime.

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