Vittorio Mangano, the 'stable keeper' of Berlusconi

Vittorio Mangano

Vittorio Mangano, best known as "lo stalliere di Arcore", was the stable keeper at Villa Martino, in Arcore, owned by Silvio Berlusconi.

During the Maxi Trial in the mid-1980s the Mafia turncoats (pentiti), Tommaso Buscetta and Salvatore Contorno , said Mangano was a "uomo d'onore" (man of honour) of Cosa Nostra and a member of the Porta Nuova family that was headed by Pippo Calò. Buscetta himself was a member of this family.

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Public prosecutor Paolo Borsellino named Mangano in his last interview on May 19 , 1992 , with the reporters Jean Pierre Moscardo and Fabrizio Calvi. Borsellino spoke about the relations and connections of the Mafia with business and politics. According to Borsellino, Mangano was the link between the Sicilian Mafia and its interests in Northern Italy. Borsellino was killed two months after this interview by a car bomb in Via D'Amelio.

The pentito Salvatore Cancemi disclosed that Berlusconi's company Fininvest , through Marcello Dell'Utri and Mangano, had paid Cosa Nostra 200 million lire (100 000 euro) annually. The alleged contacts, according to Cancemi, were to lead to legislation favourable to Cosa Nostra, in particular the harsh article 41-bis prison regime . The underlying premise was that Cosa Nostra would support Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in return for political favours. [Berlusconi friend on trial for 'aiding Mafia' , The Guardian, May 10, 2001]

According to pentito Antonino Giuffrè , Mangano served as a go between for the Mafia boss Stefano Bontade : "When Vittorio Mangano got the job in the Arcore villa, boss Stefano Bontade and some of his close aides used to meet Berlusconi using visits to Mangano as an excuse." Giuffrè told the Palermo court that despite the prime minister's assertions to the contrary, Mangano's Mafia identity was known when he was hired at the villa. [Berlusconi accused of Mafia links, BBC News, January 8, 2003]

Mangano was sentenced to life imprisonment on July 19 , 2000 for the murder of Giuseppe Pecoraro and Giovambattista Romano in January 1995. Moreover, he was suspected to be responsible for the kidnapping of Luigi D'Angerio after a dinner in the Silvio Berlusconi's Villa on December 7, 1974.

Mangano died a few days after the verdict on July 23 , 2000 in jail. He had been imprisoned five years before because of other crimes ( drug trade , extortion ). He died of a cancer. The epigraph of his tombstone is «rifiutò di barattare la sua dignità con la libertà» (he refused to barter his dignity for freedom).

Source: Vittorio Mangano (Wikipedia)

Antonino Giuffrè

According to Giuffrè the Mafia turned to Berlusconi's Forza Italia party to look after the Mafia's interests, after the decline in the early 1990s of the ruling Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana) — whose leaders in Sicily looked after the Mafia's interests in Rome. The Mafia's fall out with the Christian Democrats became clear when the DC strong man in Sicily, Salvo Lima , was killed in March, 1992. "The Lima murder marked the end of an era," Giuffrè told the court. "A new era opened with a new political force on the horizon which provided the guarantees that the Christian Democrats were no longer able to deliver. To be clear, that party was Forza Italia." [Berlusconi aide 'struck deal with mafia' , The Guardian, January 8, 2003]

According to Giuffrè, Marcello Dell'Utri — Berlusconi's right-hand man and the man who invented Forza Italia — was the go-between on a range of legislative efforts to ease pressure on mobsters in exchange for electoral support. Giuffrè said that Bernardo Provenzano told him that they "were in good hands" with Dell'Utri, who was a "serious and trustworthy person" and was close to Berlusconi. [Who Are You Going To Believe? by Jeff Israely, Time Magazine, January 12, 2003] " Dell'Utri was very close to Cosa Nostra and a very good contact point for Berlusconi ," Giuffrè said. [Mafia supergrass fingers Berlusconi, by Philip Willan, The Observer, January 12, 2003] Provenzano said that the Mafia's judicial problems would be resolved within 10 years after 1992, thanks to the undertakings given by Forza Italia. [Berlusconi aide 'struck deal with mafia', The Guardian, January 8, 2003]

Giuffrè said that Silvio Berlusconi himself used to be in touch with Stefano Bontade , a top Mafia boss, in the mid 1970s. At the time Berlusconi still was just a wealthy real estate developer and started his private television empire (Berlusconi became prime minister in 1994 and again from 2001-2006). Bontade visited Berlusconi's villa in Arcore . Bontade's contact at Berlusconi's villa was the late Vittorio Mangano , a convicted mafioso who used to be a stable manager there. Giuffrè said that other Mafia representatives who were in contact with Berlusconi included the Palermo bosses Filippo Graviano and Giuseppe Graviano — jailed for life in 1994 for ordering the murder of Anti-mafia priest Giuseppe "Pino" Puglisi in their territory Brancaccio . [Berlusconi implicated in deal with godfathers, The Guardian, December 5, 2002] [Giuffré: il boss Graviano era il tramite con Berlusconi, La Repubblica, December 3, 2002]

Source: Antonio Giuffrè (Wikipedia)