ITALY: One of post-war Italy's longest and most controversial judicial sagas came to an end yesterday when Italy's highest appeals court cleared seven times prime minister Mr Giulio Andreotti of the charge of "Mafia association".
Mr Andreotti (85), who still serves in parliament as a senator for life, was first formally accused of having colluded with the Mafia in 1993. Courts in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, have twice cleared him of the charges, first in 1999 and then at an appeals hearing last year. Yesterday's ruling was the third and final judgment in the case.
Throughout his 11-year judicial ordeal, Mr Andreotti faced his so-called "Trial of the Century" with sphinx-like equanimity, repeatedly declaring both his innocence and his belief in the judicial system. He greeted the verdict with undisguised delight, saying: "I am very, very glad to have lived long enough to see this verdict. Perhaps there were those who hoped that I wouldn't last it out but I'm still here".
Much of the prosecution's case rested on testimony from Mafia turncoats, with one of them, Balduccio di Maggio, claiming to have witnessed a September 1988 meeting between Mr Andreotti and "Boss of Bosses" Toto Riina, a meeting during which they allegedly exchanged a Mafia-style kiss.
The prosecution's case also made much of Mr Andreotti's long-time political alliance with Euro MP Salvo Lima, gunned down by the Mafia in March 1992 and someone believed to have had close links with organised crime in Sicily.
Yesterday's ruling was not a total victory for Mr Andreotti, however, since the final judgment did not absolve him of Mafia-related charges before 1980, with the court ruling that those charges had now fallen under the statute of limitations.
Yesterday's ruling also decreed that Mr Andreotti must pay his own, not inconsiderable, legal costs.