Marcello Dell'Utri

Marcello Dell'Utri (born 11 September 1941) is a former Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Formerly a senator in the Italian Senate,

Late in the 1970s, he went to work at Bresciano Costruzioni, but in 1980 he was called by Berlusconi and worked for Publitalia '80, the advertising sales wing of Fininvest's television division, first as a manager and later as the company's chairman and chief executive.

After graduation, Dell'Utri went back to Palermo to work at the Cassa di Risparmio di Sicilia (Sicilian Savings Bank), but by 1973 he was back in Milan where he began work for Silvio Berlusconi's building firm Edilnord.

In 1973, Dell'Utri introduced Vittorio Mangano, already charged for Mafia crimes, to Silvio Berlusconi, as a gardener and stable man at the Villa San Martino owned by Berlusconi in Arcore, a small town near Milan.

Mangano's real job is alleged to have been to deter kidnappers from targeting the tycoon's children.

The Mafia's fall out with the Christian Democrats became clear when the DC strong man in Sicily, Salvo Lima, was killed in March 1992.

"The Lima murder marked the end of an era," Giuffrè told the court.

"A new era opened with a new political force on the horizon which provided the guarantees that the Christian Democrats were no longer able to deliver. To be clear, that party was Forza Italia."

The Appellate Court of Palermo sentences Dell'Utri to seven years of detention for collusion with the Mafia, up to year 1992 having been acting as a liaison among mafia bosses Stefano Bontade, Toto' Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and being an intermediary between the criminal organizations in Sicily and Silvio Berlusconi.

In 1994 he was one of the founders of Forza Italia, together with Silvio Berlusconi and Cesare Previti; Forza Italia was a big-tent centre-right party, with liberal conservative, Christian democratic and even social democratic factions, whose aim was to collect all the votes of the disbanded Pentapartito, the governing centrist coalition which was dissolved after Tangentopoli scandal.

In 1995 Dell'Utri left Publitalia '80, the advertising company owned by Berlusconi.

In 1996 he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies (lower house of the Italian Parliament); while in 1999 he was elected to the European Parliament, of which he stayed member until 2004.

In 1996, the Mafia pentito (justice collaborator) Salvatore Cancemi declared that Berlusconi and Dell'Utri were in direct contact with Mafia boss Totò Riina.

The alleged contacts, according to Cancemi, were to lead to legislation favourable to Cosa Nostra, in particular the harsh 41-bis prison regime.

The underlying premise was that Cosa Nostra would support Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in return for political favours.

After a two-year investigation, magistrates closed the inquiry without charges.

They did not find evidence to corroborate Cancemi's allegations.

Similarly, a two-year investigation, also launched on evidence from Cancemi, into Berlusconi's alleged association with the Mafia was closed in 1996.

Cancemi disclosed that Fininvest, through Marcello Dell'Utri and mafioso Vittorio Mangano, had paid Cosa Nostra 200 million lire (100 000 euro) annually.

In the 2001 general election he was elected as a senator in the Italian Senate, and was re-elected in 2006 and 2008.

If true, the allegations might explain the Berlusconi coalition's clean sweep of Sicily's 61 Parliament seats in the 2001 elections.

Dell'Utri was the go-between on a range of legislative efforts to ease pressure on mafiosi in exchange for electoral support, according to Giuffrè.

"Dell'Utri was very close to Cosa Nostra and a very good contact point for Berlusconi," he said.

Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano told Giuffrè that they "were in good hands" with Dell'Utri, who was a "serious and trustworthy person".

Dell'Utri's lawyer, Enrico Trantino, dismissed Giuffrè's allegations as an "anthology of hearsay".

He said Giuffrè had perpetuated the trend that every new turncoat would attack Dell'Utri and the former Christian Democrat prime minister Giulio Andreotti in order to earn money and judicial privileges.

According to yet another mafia justice collaborator, Antonino Giuffrè – arrested on 16 April 2002 – the Mafia turned to Berlusconi's Forza Italia party to look after the Mafia's interests, after the decline in the early 1990s of the ruling Christian Democrat party (DC – Democrazia Cristiana) – whose leaders in Sicily looked after the Mafia's interests in Rome.

In December 2004, he was convicted in first instance for complicity in conspiracy with the Mafia.(concorso esterno in associazione mafiosa) and sentenced to 9 years in 2004.

Dell'Utri provided "a concrete, voluntary, conscious, specific and precious contribution to the illicit goals of Cosa Nostra, both economically and politically", according to the motivation of the sentence.

The judges describe him as a bridge enabling Cosa Nostra "to come in contact with important economic and financial circles."

Dell'Utri described the judges' deposition as "an uncritical endorsement of the arguments of the prosecution ... 1,800 uselessly repetitive pages."

The appeals trial began in 2006.

Dell'Utri has been found guilty of tax fraud, false accounting, and complicity in conspiracy with the Sicilian Mafia; the conviction for the last charge has been upheld on 9 May 2014 by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation which sentenced Dell'Utri to seven years in prison.

The conviction is final and cannot be further appealed.

The third criminal section of Palermo's Appellate Court declared Dell'Utri a fugitive in May 2014, when it was discovered he had fled the country ahead of the final court decision.

After being detained in Lebanon, on 13 June 2014 Dell'Utri was extradited to Italy, where he served 4 years of imprisonment and 1 year of house arrest.

He has been further sentenced in April 2018 to 12 years due to the State-Mafia Pact.

Dell'Utri was born in Palermo, Sicily.

After school in his native city, he went to Milan to study law at university.