MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) — Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano is set to give testimony today in a major national trial of mafia bosses, as well as government ministers and police officials who stand accused of making deals with the Italian mafia in the 1990s, Italian news site thelocal.it reported.
State prosecutors are hoping that Napolitano’s testimony will provide fresh details on mafia bombings and assassinations that killed 21 people in the early 1990s, including two top anti-mafia judges. The 89-year-old Napolitano, a popular national figure, hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing.
Ministers from Italy’s former government are suspected of having held negotiations with Sicilian gangsters to end the violence engulfing Florence, Milan and Rome in exchange for softer prison terms.
The prosecution has set its sights on six mob-connected figures, including Sicilian mob bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Toto Riina; the latter threatened to kill prosecuting magistrate Nino Di Matteo last year.
Napolitano will testify in Rome behind closed doors before seven judges and the president of Sicily’s Palermo Court.
The president was called to testify after the country’s senior council of justice member Nicola Mancino, whose telephone had been tapped by prosecutors, called Napolitano, complaining about the trial, and asking the president for help. The recorded conversations of the phone calls have since been destroyed, at the request of Napolitano, who used his prerogative as president.
Prosecutors will instead ask Napolitano about two dozen questions about communications one of the suspects had with a former government advisor, Loris D’Ambrosio. In 2012, shortly before his death, D’Ambrosio had written a letter to Napolitano noting his suspicions that the Italian government had held negotiations with mobsters in the early 1990s to end the violence, Italian news agency ANSA explained.
The mob bosses had requested to be given access to Napolitano’s testimony via video link, but their requests were denied, Italy’s Gazzetta del Sud noted.
The details of Napolitano’s testimony are not expected to be revealed to the public in the near future, the local media reported.
Napolitano was the president of the lower house of parliament at the time of the mafia terror,
Italian media note that the trial is not expected to end before next year, after which the verdict could be appealed twice before becoming conclusive, possibly stretching the trial out for another year.
