Lawmaker: Italian spy agency paid Mafia bosses
Source: Associated Press
Lawmaker: Italian spy agency paid Mafia bosses
FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press | September 30, 2014 | Updated: September 30, 2014 3:00pm
ROME (AP) — An Italian lawmaker has decried a secret arrangement in which intelligence agents paid imprisoned top Mafiosi for information during several of the years when Silvio Berlusconi was premier.
Claudio Fava, vice president of Parliament's anti-Mafia commission, told reporters Tuesday that magistrates who investigate Italy's organized crime syndicates were kept in the dark about the practice, described in a written protocol between the now-defunct intelligence agency Sisde and the national prison administration agency. The practice came to light after Premier Matteo Renzi declassified the document in July, and the arrangement was subsequently made public at the appeals trial of a former Sisde chief, Mario Mori, in Palermo, Sicily.
The arrangement ran from about 2003 to 2007. The commission will begin hearings Wednesday to learn if information bought from bosses was useful. Fava said he suspects the information might have been used to derail investigations into whether politicians had links with the Mafia.
"We didn't know then" that the arrangement was in place, and "we still don't know what information was passed on from Mafiosi to intelligence agents," Fava said. In effect, the intelligence agency was "managing top bosses held in tough prison conditions for a period protracted in time."
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Lawmaker-Italian-spy-agency-paid-Mafia-bosses-5791276.php
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