In Video, Jailed Mafia Bosses Give Orders

ROME - Mafia bosses openly passed notes and whispered to family members during visiting hours at a Sicilian prison, continuing to run their affairs from jail in a video aired Thursday on Italian TV that sparked calls for tougher vigilance of imprisoned mobsters.

Politicians and commentators expressed outrage at the video, which prosecutors initially showed Wednesday at a murder trial in Palermo, Sicily.

"If the bosses can do what is shown in those images, clearly there is no control," Luciano Violante, an opposition lawmaker and former head of parliament's anti-Mafia commission, was quoted as saying by the Italian news agency ANSA.

Many demanded to know why the inmates were allowed to lean over the low glass that separated them from visitors and whisper into relatives' ears. Some bosses were seen passing notes.

"Clearly, it's necessary to look closely at the problem of the meetings in prison between inmates and relatives," said Roberto Centaro, a deputy from Italy's governing center-right coalition who leads the commission.

The Department of Prison Administration began an inquiry into possible negligence or connivance by guards, an official at the department said.

Prosecutors collected the images from closed circuit cameras in the visitor's hall of Palermo's Pagliarelli prison after Carmela Iuculano, the wife of one inmate shown in the video, started collaborating with magistrates, Rome daily La Repubblica said.

Hidden microphones recorded parts of the inmates' conversations, the daily reported.

In one section, Iuculano is heard lobbying an inmate to have her father's protection fee lowered, La Repubblica said. In another, a man identified as convicted boss Pino Rizzo, Iuculano's husband, discusses with his brother what to do about a turncoat, La Repubblica reported.