Calls are mounting for Italy’s president to allow the public to hear his testimony in the trial of a former government official accused of negotiating with mafia bosses to end terror bombings in the 1990s.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, 89, was to testify behind closed doors yesterday when the trial moved from Palermo to Rome for the day.
Journalists and opposition politicians on Monday demanded that the media be allowed to cover Napolitano’s testimony.
The Palermo court is trying former Italian interior minister Nicola Mancino for allegedly negotiating with the mafia following the 1993 bombings of churches in Rome, the Uffizi museum in Florence and a Milan park. Mancino has denied any negotiations.
Former Cosa Nostra “boss of bosses” Salvator Riina, and other imprisoned mob bosses have been convicted in previous trials of ordering the terror bombings. Prosecutors and lawyers for Riina want to question Napolitano.
Napolitano has said he knows nothing about the alleged negotiations.
The probe includes an intercepted telephone call that revealed that Mancino asked an aide to Napolitano if there was any way to avoid a trial.
Riina was captured in Palermo in January 1993 after decades on the run. He was netted in a crackdown on the mafia following twin bombings in Sicily in 1992 that killed Italy’s top anti-mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
Prosecutors alleged that after the 1993 bombings, government officials sought to cut a deal with mafia bosses, purportedly promising more lenient jail conditions in exchange for calling off the bombing campaign.
Italian Senate Vice President Maurizio Gasparri urged Napolitano to heed a front-page appeal by the Corriere della Sera to testify live to avoid any doubts about the reputation of his office.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese