Former Cosa Nostra boss tells Milan court the Sicilian Mafia considered pinning its bombing campaign on the political Left as a favour to Silvio Berlusconi. He claims a veiled threat of further attacks was sent if he failed to help.
Former Mafia boss Giovanni Brusca told a court hearing on Wednesday that Cosa Nostra had discussed framing the Italian Left for its 1992-93 bombing campaign in order to smooth Silvio Berlusconi’s entry into politics.
Brusca, who took part in the Capaci bombing that killed prosecutor Falcone and was freed in 2025 after becoming a state witness, gave evidence via video link from an undisclosed location. He was testifying at the trial of Salvatore Baiardo, a man linked to the Graviano mafia family, who is accused of calumny against television presenter Massimo Giletti.
Brusca told the court that discussions with jailed boss Leoluca Bagarella, held after the 1992 and 1993 attacks, considered presenting the bombings as though they had been inspired by the Left. The aim was to help Berlusconi and steer his move into politics.
Claims of contact and a “veiled threat”
According to Brusca, the late mafia killer Vittorio Mangano reported having reached Berlusconi — either through his aide Marcello Dell’Utri or other channels — and that Berlusconi had responded with thanks, promising to help “as soon as possible”. Brusca also told the court that Cosa Nostra sent Berlusconi a veiled warning that further bombs would follow if he did not assist, in order to create political difficulty for him.
Cosa Nostra’s bombing campaign began in 1992 after the Supreme Court upheld the convictions of more than 300 mobsters in the Maxi Trial against the Sicilian Mafia, making the sentences definitive.
A long-running and repeatedly dismissed theory
Various legal attempts to link the late former premier and media magnate to the Mafia have been thrown out by Italian courts over the years. Those included a Florence investigation into the allegations, which a court dismissed in June.
Responding at the time, Berlusconi’s eldest daughter, businesswoman Marina Berlusconi, said the theory linking the 1992-93 bombings to the founding of her father’s Forza Italia party had fuelled three decades of suspicion and insinuation against Berlusconi and Dell’Utri, but had ultimately produced nothing beyond wasted paper in the courts and in some newsrooms.
