Berlusconi and the Mafia

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday July 16, 2002 11:45 by clinton

A councillor from Berlusconi's Forza Italia party was arrested attending a gathering of mafia bosses in Italy.

POLICE in Sicily have arrested 15 Mafia bosses, ambushing them as they gathered in a country house to elect a new godfather.

As the dons were kissing each other goodbye, "dozens of policemen charged in after spending the night outside in the rain filming them," La Repubblica newspaper said.

It is believed to be the first time that so many capi have been arrested in one raid.

The operation was launched at a villa in Santa Margherita Belice, near Agrigento, in the south of the island.

Agrigento is in the heart of the countryside in which Giuseppe Tommaso di Lampedusa set his classic novel, The Leopard, about Sicily's aristocracy being overtaken by a class that knew how to make money.

The local anti-Mafia squad said the raid had netted every family chief in the district, as well as a councillor belonging to the Forza Italia party, led by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Bosses feared at first that it was an ambush by rivals and some were relieved when they realised it was the police. One gangster was quoted as saying: "It's better to go to jail than the cemetery."