ROME, October 28 (RIA Novosti) — Italian president Giorgio Napolitano was questioned on Tuesday by judges for three hours overseeing a case into secret negotiations between the government and Sicilian Mafia bosses in the 1990s, the TMNews agency reported.
The hearing was held in the Quirinal Palace in Rome behind closed doors. No media was allowed. Almost 40 people took part in the court sitting, including 10 defendants.
Napolitano himself is not accused of any crime and was only called on as a witness. Earlier, the Italian president said that he had nothing to tell the court, however he did agree to testify.
Italian prosecutors accuse politicians and officials of holding talks with the Mafia after the 1993 bombings of churches in Rome, a museum in Florence, and a park in Milan, reportedly promising better jail conditions in exchange for calling off the bombing campaign.
The Sicilian Mafia also widely known as Cosa Nostra is an association of criminal groups that share a common code of conduct and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering. The Sicilian Mafia emerged in the mid-1800s, and is still powerful in Italy today.
