Court says Berlusconi paid for Mafia protection

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi paid the Sicilian Mafia to protect himself and his family from kidnapping in the mid-1970s, Italy’s highest appeals court has said.

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.

In the 1970s, Italian criminal organisations kidnapped wealthy people or their children, and held them for ransom.

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.