Last week the Brusca brothers took the stand in the so-called "Trial of the Century". Sessions 118 and 119 on Monday and Tuesday may well prove among the most significant of the entire trial. Certainly, they appeared to represent a serious setback for the defendant, Giulio Andreotti (78), seven times Italian prime minister. He is charged with systematic collusion with the Sicilian Mafia.
The Brusca brothers, Giovanni and Enzo, are Mafia godfathers, arrested just over a year ago in a spectacularly successful police operation. Their testimony appears to support the Palermo prosecutors' thesis that Senator Andreotti was the Mafia's "main man", its principal political protector for a 20year period from the 1960s to the '80s and someone who used his vast influence to have convictions against the Mafia quashed. The prosecution alleges the life Senator's relations with the Mafia ruptured when he proved unable to arrange the quashing of the heavy sentences issued to more than 300 mafiosi at the celebrated "MaxiProcesso" of the mid-1980s.
The prosecution's case would appear twofold, relying on the evidence of Mafia godfathers turned state's witness while also pointing to Senator Andreotti's close links with controversial figures, such as the former Sicilian MEP, Salvo Lima, gunned down by the Mafia in March 1992, and the bankrupt, murder accomplice and one time "Vatican banker", Michele Sindona.
Over the last year Giovanni Brusca has made a number of puzzling statements about the Mafia's relations with politicians, at one point denying any link between Mr Andreotti and the Mafia. Last week, however, he claimed his earlier statements had been intended to muddy the waters and he now wanted to collaborate with investigators and tell all.
"Giulio Andreotti plotted and manipulated behind the scenes; he was Cosa Nostra's main reference point," Brusca said, adding: "Lima was killed to teach Andreotti a lesson, since he betrayed us by failing to have the Maxi-Processo sentences quashed."
Giovanni Brusca and his brother Enzo have long been considered among the most loyal "lieutenants" of Salvatore "Toto" Riina, the "Boss of Bosses", arrested in 1993. Enzo Brusca has claimed that Mr Andreotti met Riina in 1988, when the Boss was a fugitive from justice.
At least two other Mafiosi turned state's witness, Baldassare Di Maggio and Francesco Marino Mannoia, claim to have been present at meetings between Mr Andreotti and Mafia godfathers. Di Maggio claims to have been present at a meeting in September 1988 in a Palermo apartment between Mr Anreotti and Riina; he furthermore claims that the senator greeted the godfather warmly, kissing him on both cheeks when he walked into the room.
This week, Enzo Brusca also alleged that meeting had taken place, saying that although he himself had not been present, he had been informed of it by his father.
For four years now Mr Andreotti has firmly denied all the charges, claiming that he is the victim of a political vendetta. Speaking to The Irish Times, he repeated that defence, arguing that he has been framed as part of a Mafia plot to present false testimony.
He declares his continuing belief in the honesty of his former ally, Salvo Lima. "When I entered the Palermo courtroom for the first time, I felt humiliated, morally offended because I know I did more than my duty to combat the Mafia," he said during the interview. "This is a political plot against me . . . Di Maggio has simply invented the story that I kissed Toto Riina. Maybe the American Mafia is behind it because during my time as foreign minister I helped develop Italo-US collaboration in fighting Mafia drug-trafficking . . . "As for Lima, I don't yet know a single negative thing about him . . . and you may say to me that everyone in Sicily says he was a Mafioso, but against how many people is that accusation made in Sicily?"