Appeal
In October 2009, Gaspare Spatuzza, a Mafioso turned pentito in 2008, confirmed Giuffrè statements. Spatuzza testified that his boss Giuseppe Graviano had told him in 1994 that future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was bargaining with the Mafia, concerning a political-electoral agreement between Cosa Nostra and Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia. Spatuzza said Graviano disclosed the information to him during a conversation in a bar Graviano owned in the upscale Via Veneto district of the Italian capital Rome. Dell'Utri was the intermediary, according to Spatuzza. Dell'Utri has dismissed Spatuzza's allegations as "nonsense".
Spatuzza's allegations were included in the prosecution of Dell’Utri’s Mafia collusion appeal and Spatuzza repeated his allegations at the Appeal Trial. Prosecutors argued that the Mafia spread panic with a campaign of terrorist bombings in mainland Italy in 1993 so that Forza Italia could step onto the political stage in the guise of national saviour. The bombings stopped after Berlusconi first won power in 1994.
On June 29, 2010, the Palermo Court of Appeals reduced the 2004 nine-year sentence for collusion with the Mafia to seven years. In reviewing the previous sentence, the appeals court said the conviction stood only for acts committed by Dell'Utri prior to 1992, while he was acquitted for charges after that year. The prosecution had asked that the sentence be increased to 11 years. The judges took six days to consider their decision, an extraordinary long time for deliberations. The verdict effectively cleared Dell’Utri and Italian prime minister Berlusconi over allegations his entry into politics was backed by Cosa Nostra and a terrorist bombing campaign. However, Prosecuting Offices in other Italian cities are looking into these allegations.
After the Appeals court ruling, Dell'Utri expressed his admiration for the late Vittorio Mangano, a convicted Mafioso who up to his death in prison denied that any link existed between Cosa Nostra and Dell'Utri and Berlusconi. "He was a sick inmate who was asked to testify against me and Berlusconi and always refused to do so. If he had, anything he would have said would have been believed. But he preferred to stay in prison, and die there, rather than to make unjust accusations," Dell'Utri said. "He was my hero. I don't know if I could have resisted as much as he did."
Read more about this topic: Marcello Dell'Utri
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