Rome, June 30: An appeals court in Italy has convicted an ally of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to seven years in prison on charges of Mafia association.
Marcello Dell’Utri was handed down a verdict clearing that he previously had links with Cosa Nostra, the original Mafia.
Dell’Utri had been sentenced to nine years in prison. The appeals court upheld his conviction but reduced his term in prison to seven years.
The Sicilian advertising executive, who serves as a senator in his conservative party, created the Forza Italia (Come on Italy) Party, with which Berlusconi broke into Italy’s political stage in 1994.
According to the Italian news agency ANSA, the court in Palermo on Tuesday lowered the sentence against Dell’Utri because of a lack of proof for charges relating to events after 1992, the year in which Nostra launched a wave of brutal attacks against the Italian state.
The Italian premier, however, is not linked to the Dell’Utri case.
Berlusconi has never been convicted in the 109 cases brought against him since he entered politics 16 years ago.
——-Agencies