Berlusconi quizzed as witness in mafia case

An Italian court questioned former premier Silvio Berlusconi for three hours Wednesday as a witness in a case dating to the 1970s when he was allegedly blackmailed by the mafia, media reports said. The Rome hearing was part of the so-called Dell'Utri affair, named after one of Berlusconi's close aides who was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2010 for collusion with organised crime figures. In March, Italy's highest appeal court had overturned the conviction of senator Marcello Dell'Utri for association with the mafia, ordering a new trial. Dell'Utri, from Palermo, Sicily, was sentenced in 2004 to nine years' imprisonment over links to leaders of Sicily's Cosa Nostra crime group. The Palermo court of appeal upheld the conviction in June 2010 but reduced the sentence to seven years. It also said Dell'Utri was a contact point between Berlusconi and the Cosa Nostra. The senator had allowed the Cosa Nostra to "hook on to one of the biggest Italian businesses of the time, gaining illicit profit from extortion", the ruling said, referring to Berlusconi's then-expanding business empire. Italy's highest appeal court then said that Berlusconi had paid large amounts of money to the Sicilian mafia family in the 1970s so he would not be physically attacked. A court document described him as "a victim who acted out of necessity" and said he "paid large amounts of money for his security and that of his family". During the appeal trial in December 2009, mafia turncoat Gaspare Spatuzza had accused Dell'Utri of having acted as a middle man between the Cosa Nostra and the political world. Palermo court magistrates questioned Berlusconi in a police barracks of the Italian capital. In February, a court in Milan threw out bribery charges against Berlusconi under the statute of limitations after a five-year trial, in another judicial victory for the former prime minister.