Marcello Dell'Utri

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Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri

Marcello Dell'Utri (born 11 September 1941 in Palermo, Sicily) is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He is currently Senator of the Italian Republic. He is convicted for collusion with the Mafia, pending appeal.

He is the co-leader of the Forza Italia political movement, a centre-right party founded together with Silvio Berlusconi in 1993. He is the Italian delegate to the Council of Europe and to the WEO, Western European Union. He is also entrepreneur, and former chairman and chief executive of Publitalia '80, the advertising sales wing of Fininvest's television division.[1]

Marcello Dell'Utri is president of many cultural association and editor of many journals and magazines, namely: Biblioteca di via Senato, l’Erasmo. Trimestrale della civiltà europea, Il Domenicale. He is also president of the cultural association Il Circolo Giovani.[2]

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[edit] Early career

After school in his native city, he went to Milan to study Law at university. After graduation, Dell'Utri went back to Palermo to work at the Cassa di Risparmio di Sicilia (English: Sicilian Savings Bank), but by 1973 he was back in Milan where he began work for Silvio Berlusconi's building firm Edilnord. Late in the 1970s, he went to work at Bresciano Costruzioni, but in 1980 he was called by Berlusconi and worked for Publitalia '80, the advertising sales wing of Fininvest's television division, first as a manager and later as the company's chairman and chief executive.

In 1994 he was one of the founders of Forza Italia, and in 1995 he left Publitalia 80. In 1996 he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies (lower house of the Italian Parliament). In 1999 he was elected to the European Parliament. In 2001 he was elected as a senator in the Italian Senate and re-elected in 2006.[1]

[edit] Collusion with the Mafia

In 1973, Dell’Utri introduced Vittorio Mangano, already charged for Mafia crimes, to Silvio Berlusconi, as a gardener and stable man at the Villa San Martino owned by Berlusconi in Arcore, a small town near Milan. Mangano's real job is alleged to have been to deter kidnappers from targeting the tycoon's children.[3][4] Berlusconi denies any ties to the Mafia.

In 1996, the Mafia pentito (turncoat) Salvatore Cancemi declared that Berlusconi and Dell'Utri were in direct contact with Mafia boss Totò Riina. The alleged contacts, according to Cancemi, were to lead to legislation favourable to Cosa Nostra, in particular the harsh 41-bis prison regime. The underlying premise was that Cosa Nostra would support Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in return for political favours.[5] After a two-year investigation, magistrates closed the inquiry without charges. They did not find evidence to corroborate Cancemi’s allegations. Similarly, a two-year investigation, also launched on evidence from Cancemi, into Berlusconi’s alleged association with the Mafia was closed in 1996.[3][6] Cancemi disclosed that Fininvest, through Marcello Dell'Utri and mafioso Vittorio Mangano, had paid Cosa Nostra 200 million lire (100 000 euro) annually.[5]

According to yet another mafia turncoat, Antonino Giuffrè – arrested on April 16, 2002 – the Mafia turned to Berlusconi's Forza Italia party to look after the Mafia's interests, after the decline in the early 1990s of the ruling Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana) — whose leaders in Sicily looked after the Mafia's interests in Rome. The Mafia’s fall out with the Christian Democrats became clear when the DC strong man in Sicily, Salvo Lima, was killed in March, 1992. "The Lima murder marked the end of an era," Giuffrè told the court. "A new era opened with a new political force on the horizon which provided the guarantees that the Christian Democrats were no longer able to deliver. To be clear, that party was Forza Italia."[7] If true, the allegations might explain the Berlusconi coalition's clean sweep of Sicily's 61 Parliament seats in the 2001 elections.[8]

Dell'Utri was the go-between on a range of legislative efforts to ease pressure on mafiosi in exchange for electoral support, according to Giuffrè. "Dell'Utri was very close to Cosa Nostra and a very good contact point for Berlusconi," he said.[9] Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano told Giuffrè that they "were in good hands" with Dell'Utri, who was a "serious and trustworthy person".[8] Dell'Utri's lawyer, Enrico Trantino, dismissed Giuffrè’s allegations as an "anthology of hearsay". He said Giuffrè had perpetuated the trend that every new turncoat would attack Dell'Utri and the former Christian Democrat prime minister Giulio Andreotti in order to earn money and judicial privileges.[10]

[edit] Convictions

In 1999 the Corte di Cassazione (the highest judicial court in Italy) sentenced him to 2 years and 3 months for tax fraud and false accounting. Despite this, during the same year, he was elected as a MEP, and in 2001 he was appointed to the Italian Senate. Indeed, the Italian legal system allows the statute of limitations to continue to run during the course of legal trial. Thus, nullifying the facto the pending charge.

He is currently on trial for complicity in conspiracy with the Mafia (Italian: concorso in associazione mafiosa), crime for which he was judged guilty in first instance and sentenced to 9 years in 2004, pending appeal.[11][12] Dell'Utri provided "a concrete, voluntary, conscious, specific and precious contribution to the illicit goals of Cosa Nostra, both economically and politically", according to the motivation of the sentence. The judges describe him as a bridge enabling Cosa Nostra "to come in contact with important economic and financial circles." Dell'Utri described the judges' deposition as "an uncritical endorsement of the arguments of the prosecution ... 1,800 uselessly repetitive pages."[13]

On May 15, 2007, the Third Appeal Court in Milan sentenced Dell'Utri and Mafia boss Vincenzo Virga to two years each for attempted extortion of Trapani Basket Ball team by Publitalia, the Fininvest concessionaire.[14]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Italian Senate Official Web Site, Italian Senate, June 02, 2006
  2. ^ IV Convegno Nazionale de "Il Circolo Giovani", Radio radicale, November 26, 2006
  3. ^ a b An Italian Story, The Economist, April 26, 2001
  4. ^ Berlusconi accused of Mafia links, BBC news, 8 January 2003
  5. ^ a b Berlusconi friend on trial for 'aiding Mafia', The Guardian, May 10, 2001
  6. ^ Accusa e difesa del senatore "M"; Una vicenda lunga dieci anni, La Repubblica, December 11, 2004
  7. ^ Berlusconi aide 'struck deal with mafia', The Guardian, January 8, 2003
  8. ^ a b Who Are You Going To Believe?, Time Magazine, January 12, 2003
  9. ^ Mafia supergrass fingers Berlusconi by Philip Willan, The Observer, January 12, 2003
  10. ^ Berlusconi implicated in deal with godfathers, The Guardian, December 5, 2002
  11. ^ (Italian) Accusa e difesa del senatore "M"; Una vicenda lunga dieci anni, La Repubblica, December 11, 2004
  12. ^ Berlusconi's top ally jailed for Mafia link, The Observer, December 12, 2004
  13. ^ Aide close to Berlusconi helped the Sicilian Mafia, judges find, The Independent, July 15, 2005
  14. ^ Marco Travaglio in Beppe Grillo’s Blog
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