Rome, December 25: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he wanted to defeat the mafia once and for all by 2013, in an interview Thursday on national radio.
“The mafia is a pathological phenomenon that we want to defeat once and for all by the end of this term in office” he said from his villa near Milan where he is recovering after being attacked on December 13.
“Despite the accusations made against the prime minister, no government in the history of the republic has acted with as much determination and efficiency in the fight against criminal organisations”, he said, adding “we have arrested an average of eight people per day”.
Ex-Mafia mobster Gaspare Spatuzza has claimed that Berlusconi and former aide Marcello Dell’Utri were political interlocutors for the mafia in the nineties.
The accusations, vehemently denied by Berlusconi, were partly refuted by a former top Mafia don earlier this month.
–Agencies