More Legal Problems
In 1999 the Corte di Cassazione (the highest judicial court in Italy) had already sentenced him to 2 years and 3 months for tax fraud and false accounting. Despite this, during the same year, he was elected as a MEP, and in 2001 he was appointed to the Italian Senate. Indeed, the Italian legal system allows the statute of limitations to continue to run during the course of legal trial. Thus, nullifying the fact of the pending charge.
His case became even more complicated when a transcript of a tapped phone conversation became public in April 2006. The conversation was between the fugitive Vito Roberto Palazzolo – a notorious Mafia "banker" linked to Bernardo Provenzano – and his sister in Milan. Palazzolo, convicted in Switzerland for laundering drug money, absconded to South Africa in 1986. Italy was seeking his extradition from South Africa. In the tapped phone conversation Palazzolo urged his sister to pressure Dell’Utri to disrupt the extradition attempts and offering to cut him in on construction deals in Angola. "Don't worry, you don't have to convert him, he's already been converted," Palazzolo said, implying that Dell’Utri was a link to the Mafia.
On May 15, 2007, the Appeal Court in Milan sentenced Dell'Utri and Mafia boss Vincenzo Virga to two years each for attempted extortion of Trapani Basket Ball team by Publitalia, the Fininvest concessionaire. Four years later, the Appeal Court in Milan nullified the sentence and absolved Dell'Utri and Virga because there is no substance to the fact.
Read more about this topic: Marcello Dell'Utri
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