London: Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi, who is embroiled in several sex scandals, has
reportedly paid the mafia 300,000 pounds a year as protection
money.
The cash was used to keep the premier's business "in
order", a mobster-turned-informer told a court.
"It was all tied to his business activities in
Sicily," Giovanni Brusca, who is also known as il Porco -- the
Pig, was quoted as saying by the Sun.
54-year-old Brusca, who is testifying amid tight
security in Rome in a case involving two policemen accused of
corruption, told the court some 30 years ago local godfather
Stefano Bontade "invested a lot of money through Berlusconi".
When Bontade was gunned down in 1981, the cash went to
boss-of-bosses Toto Riina, he added.
Brusca went on: "He then stopped paying so we had to
arrange a hit so that he would start to pay again."
He did not go into details -- but it is thought he was
referring to a 1986 bomb attack that damaged Berlusconi's
villa in Milan.
Brusca, who admits murdering "between 100 and 200
people", turned supergrass after his arrest in 1996.
He was convicted of the 1992 murder of a judge and the
kidnapping of a fellow mobster's 11-year-old son, who he had
killed and dissolved in acid.
Berlusconi has always denied mob links -- but a stable
manager at his home in the 1970s was later convicted of being
a mafia killer.
Berlusconi, 74, is currently on trial for his alleged
sex offences with a teenage prostitute and abusing his
position.
His trial is due to resume later this month. He denies
any wrongdoing.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, May 19, 2011, 20:52