UPI en Español  |   UPI Asia  |   About UPI  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Berlusconi announces mob arrests

|
 
Published: Dec. 5, 2009 at 10:47 PM

ROME, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Two top Mafia leaders have been arrested in Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Saturday, refuting claims his government has ties to organized crime.

Gianni Nicchi, 28, allegedly the No. 2 leader in the Sicilian mob, was found in an apartment in Palermo, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. Nicchi had been in hiding for three years.

Gaetano Fidanzati, 74, was arrested in Milan, the BBC said.

Berlusconi announced the arrests in Rome.

"This is the best response to all the slander made by irresponsible people who, by doing this, are only slinging mud," he said.

This week, a mob informant, testifying at the appeal of a Berlusconi associate in Turin, said a Mafia boss told him in 1994 that Berlusconi had helped the Mafia. Marcello Dell'Utri, a senator with a long relationship with the prime minister, is appealing his conviction and seven-year prison sentence.

© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
'Star Trek Into Darkness' screening NBC upfronts Met Ball 2013
'Great Gatsby' premieres in New York Spire raised on top of One WTC 2013: Celebrity break ups and divorces
Additional World News Stories
1 of 16
Tornadoes Devastate Moore, Oklahoma
View Caption
A damaged movie theater is seen in aftermath of a series of tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma, May 21, 2013. On May 20 a series of tornadoes swept through severals towns south of Oklahoma City leaving a path of destruction and killing at least 24 people. UPI/J.P. Wilson
fark
Obligatory before and after images of Moore, OK
Sami Bouzaglo, co-owner of Amy's Baking Company, faces deportation after it's learned he has convictions...
If you're going to rob a bank, it's probably best to wear a disguise, not a floor-length, green...
One of the last three surviving Jewish fighters from the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943 has died...
Senator who voted against disaster aid for Sandy: now is not the time to discuss my position on...
Gay man comes out as Boy Scout