Feb 28 2007
Italy miffed by Israeli watchdog’s ‘Sicily’ smear
JERUSALEM – Italy has voiced offence after the head of an Israeli commission of inquiry into suspected police corruption warned that his country was going the way of Sicily, the legendary heartland of the Mafia.
Sandro De Bernardin, Italy’s ambassador to Israel, said comments such as those of retired Israeli judge Vardi Zeiler ignored crime-fighting campaigns in the island region.
‘I do not deny that in the past there was organised crime in Sicily. But I was not pleased with the statement that organised crime still controls the district police and the government institutions there,’ De Bernardin was quoted as saying by Israel’s top-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, on Tuesday.
‘That is a lie and a falsehood. It is foolish to say so. Italian policemen lost their lives in the fight against crime in Sicily. To say that the Sicilian police are controlled by crime organisations is simply unfair,’ the ambassador said.
Italy has scored major successes in the fight against the Mafia since the killing of two anti-Mafia judges in 1992. Top bosses Salvatore ‘the beast’ Riina and Bernardo ‘the tractor’ Provenzano were arrested in 1993 and 2006 respectively.
But investigators say Cosa Nostra, as the Sicilian Mafia calls itself, is still a major problem on the island. It makes most of its money through extortion rackets and trying to win public works contracts for companies it controls.
REUTERS 5:56 a.m. February 27, 2007 Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070227-0556-israel-italy-.html
