Police arrested two Mafia leaders on Saturday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said, a day after he was accused of links to the organization.
Gianni Nicchi, the 28-year-old thought to be the Mafia’s second in command, was found hiding in an apartment a few hundred meters from the main court in Palermo, Sicily, Berlusconi told journalists.
Police also arrested alleged Mafia No. 3 Gaetano Fidanzati, 74, on a street in the northern city of Milan, Berlusconi said.
PHOTO: EPA
“This is the best response to all the slander made by irresponsible people who, by doing this, are only slinging mud” at Italy, Berlusconi said.
Bersluconi appeared to be referring to testimony by a former Mafia member on Friday that mob chief Giuseppe Graviano had said Berlusconi and one of his allies, Senator Marcello Dell’Utri, had aided the Mafia.
The crime boss said he “got everything thanks to the reliability of these people,” before giving the names of Berlusconi and Dell’Utri, Gaspare Spatuzza told a Turin court.
Graviano said the Sicilian Mafia had “the country in their hands” thanks to the help they received, Spatuzza said.
Both Berlusconi and Dell’Utri have vehemently denied ties to the Mafia and after Saturday’s arrests, the prime minister repeated his assertion that his government “had done more than any other to fight organized crime in the last 20 years.”
In related news, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the center of Rome against Berlusconi on Saturday after an Internet call for a “No Berlusconi Day.”
Most of them wore scarves, T-shirts or sweaters in various shades of violet after the group of bloggers who organized the protest chose it as the only color not used by political parties.
The organizers claimed to have attracted 350,000 supporters from a wide spectrum of society, backed by mainly left-wing opposition parties.
One of the organizers, Gianfranco Mascia, told journalists he thought the crowds may even have passed a million.
Banners carried by the marchers calling on Berlusconi to quit referred to the prime minister’s various legal problems, including suspicions of corruption and tax fraud.
Participants ranged from film director Nanni Moretti, who condemned Berlusconi’s domination of Italian TV, to ecologists and immigrant defense groups.
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