Islamic terrorists linked to Italy Mafia group

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19622509.htm

ROME, April 19 (Reuters) - Italian investigators have found a link between Islamic terrorist groups and the Camorra, one of Italy's main organised crime groups, a top anti-Mafia investigator said on Monday.

"We have evidence that groups of the Camorra are implicated in an exchange of weapons for drugs with terrorist groups," Pierluigi Vigna, Italy's national anti-mafia prosecutor, told reporters at the foreign press club.

Asked what kind of terrorist groups, he said: "Islamic terrorist groups."

Vigna, whose Rome-based office coordinates the work of magistrates investigating organised crime in Italy, said he could not give more details.

more

[hedda_foil]

1. What's the connection between the Mafia and Berlusconi?

There has to be one.

On edit. Google has the answer, of course.

BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2516157.stm

Tuesday, 26 November, 2002, 17:38 GMT
Mafia trial judges quiz Berlusconi

Berlusconi faced tough questioning

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi appeared before judges on Tuesday in the trial of a close associate accused of Mafia money-laundering - but refused to answer any questions.
The hearing was held behind closed doors for "security reasons", to the anger of some Italian news organisations.

Mr Berlusconi used his right under Italian law to refuse to comment, judicial sources said. Judges from Sicily had travelled to Rome for the hearing, in the trial of businessman Marcello Dell'Utri.

Mr Dell'Utri, a senator in Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, is accused of using an advertising business - part of Berlusconi's Fininvest business empire - to recycle Mafia money.

<snip>


World Press Review: http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/916.cfm

Italy
Berlusconi Accused of Mafia Ties

Felix Petrelli
Florence, Italy
Jan. 28, 2002


Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi addresses reporters, Dec. 17, 2002 (Photo: Gabriel Bouys/AFP).
In November 2002, Italy reeled in shock when its former prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, was sentenced to 24 years in prison for complicity in a 1979 Mafia-related killing. Now, the testimony of another mobster is in the spotlight, and is proving politically embarrassing to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his right-hand senator Marcello Dell’Utri, and his political party, Forza Italia.

On Jan. 7, 2003, Antonino Giuffre—once a key aide to the fugitive Mafia kingpin Bernardo Provenzano, now an informer—confirmed that Mafia figures had been in contact with members of Berlusconi's Fininvest company to negotiate the terms of their political support for Berlusconi’s election campaign. He also clearly stated that several Mafiosi, including a Palermo boss named Stefano Bontade, had met the Italian premier at his villa outside Milan many years before Berlusconi entered politics in 1993. According to Giuffre’s testimony, Bontade used to go to Berlusconi’s villa to visit his friend (and Mafioso) Vittorio Mangano, who was employed as the stable manager at Berlusconi’s country estate, Villa D’Arcore.

Giuffre is testifying in the ongoing trial of Senator Marcello Dell’Utri, who stands accused of laundering mob money through Publitalia, the publishing company he formerly managed. Publitalia, which is Italy’s largest publishing house, is owned by Berlusconi’s company Fininvest. Prosecutors allege that the Sicilian-born Dell’Utri was very close to top mobsters and allowed the Mafia to use Fininvest accounts to launder dirty money.

<snip>

According to Giuffre, the strongest link with Berlusconi was Dell’Utri, who “was an excellent point of contact to Berlusconi and was therefore known as a serious and trustworthy person, which means someone who keeps promises made before an election and goes ahead with them.” Giuffre went on to say that the relationship between Dell’Utri and the Mafia “gained importance in 1993 when Berlusconi was putting together his Forza Italia party. The Mafia turned to Berlusconi’s new party when its traditional contacts proved unable to protect its godfathers from the law. Forza Italia assured the Mafia that it would rein in the police, soften jail conditions for Mafiosi, and ease the confiscation of Mafia property. In exchange, the Mafia was to abandon its assault on the state—manifested in the 1992 and 1993 killings of two anti-Mafia magistrates—and fade into the shadows so as not to embarrass its new political ally. The Sicilian Mafia started to encourage a new generation of politicians to come forward and become candidates for Forza Italia.”

In the last national elections in 2001, Forza Italia won all 61 Sicilian seats in Parliament.

Pravda: http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/05/21/5517.html

12:01

BERLUSCONI: CLOSE FRIEND ACCUSED OF MAFIA LINKS

No sooner has the dust settled after the Italian election, in which Silvio Berlusconi was voted into office as Italy-s new prime minister with his coalition of Fascists, than the skeletons come rattling out of his closet.

Tomorrow, a court in Palermo, Sicily, will determine whether Mr. Berlusconi is to appear as a witness at the trial of a close friend of his, accused of having links with, but not belong to, the Mafia.
The friend in question is Marcello dell-Utri, the Sicilian ex-Director of PublicitÀria, part of Berlusconi-s media empire. He is accused of having used his links with the Mafia to hire a convicted Mafia man to work at Berlusconi-s villa. When Mr. Berlusconi is in court, he may have to ask questions about the holding companies which form his company, Fininvest.

It has long been conjectured in Italy that the first millions which launched Berlusconi into his 11,5 billion-dollar empire were obscure in their origin and a question has been raised as to whether or not this money came from the Mafia.

<snip>

After the disgraceful acts of xenophobia performed by his party, including an incident in which a herd of pigs was released on a site on which a Mosque was to be built, such a scenario would not provide the new Italian government with much credibility.

The Liga Nord received only 4% of the vote in last week-s elections, however, if Berlusconi chooses to ignore the Liga Nord now, Bossi could be tempted to adopt more extreme positions to attract attention, something which he seems to have great facility in doing. Bossi-s views on the south of Italy are notorious. He considers that because the north of the country is richer than the south, Italy should become a federation so that the taxpayers in ?Padania¦, his warped notion of a separate state, would not have to support the poorer regions further south.

TIMOTHY BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.RU
LISBON
<snip>

[lapfog_1]

2. more telling

what kind of DRUGS? Opium?

[Larkspur]

3. I'm surprised the Serbian Mafia isn't the terrorists #1 seller of weapons

They are supposedly more ruthless than the Italian mob and have more access to weapons needed by terrorists.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Weapons for drugs, terrorists and the Mafia. Hmmm. Now, what could

be missing from this old, familiar picture?

Here's a place to start looking:

[bobthedrummer]

5. Why it goes back at least as far as WWII when the OSS helped Lucky

Luiciano out and we invaded Sicily with his Mafia on our side and labor peace on the docks:puke::argh:

Mafia, Nazis, slavers, opium lords and ethnic gangsters, you'll find them all inside of "national security"-it's time to clean house by coming clean about the corruption. It's treasonous not to imo.

[daleo]

6. I vaguely remember B.B. Rebozo

The spelling is phonetic, but he was a buddy of Nixon's, said to be connected to the mob. Let he who is without sin...