Mafia Trial May Show Politicians Aided Fugitive Boss (Update1)

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Sicilian Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano has evaded arrest for 43 years with help from the island's police and politicians, one of his former organized crime associates is scheduled to testify today.

Leading Sicilian politicians tipped off Mafia members about police surveillance operations, former mobster Francesco Campanella said in a Sept. 21 deposition. Campanella is the lead witness at the trial of four public officials charged with assisting the Sicilian Mafia.

``The damage to the search for Provenzano caused by these leaks was enormous,'' said Antonino Di Matteo, one of the investigative magistrates on the case, in a Dec. 10 interview in his Palermo office. The leaks ``also reinforced the view that the Mafia is stronger than the state and that the state can't be trusted.''

The Mafia used extortion, usury, fraud and theft to siphon 28 billion euros ($34 billion) from legal businesses in 2004, an increase of 17 percent, according to SOS Impresa, an association that fights corruption. About 357,000 companies were closed from 1999 to 2004 because they were victims of organized crime, the Rome-based group says.

Campanella's testimony may shed light on the life led by Provenzano, Italy's most-wanted criminal, who prosecutors say has strengthened the criminal syndicate since taking over in the 1990s by focusing on business and sparingly resorting to violence. Provenzano has been on the run since 1963, when an eyewitness accused him of being involved in a triple murder.

`Our Thing'

The Sicilian Mafia, also known as the Cosa Nostra (``Our Thing''), has as its goal ``total submersion'' so that its activities are ``always less evident from a criminal point of view, and so fewer homicides,'' Campanella said in an Oct. 21 deposition obtained by Bloomberg News. ``Provenzano's and Cosa Nostra's strategy is to be directly involved in business.''

Campanella, 33, who prosecutors say was a low-ranking member of the Villabate crime family and was the president of the city council, will testify from a guarded courtroom in Florence to protect him from potential mob retaliation.

Campanella is expected by prosecutors to repeat an accusation made during his deposition about Salvatore ``Toto'' Cuffaro, 47, the president of Sicily's regional government. Campanella plans to say Cuffaro told him investigators had photographs and recordings of him with Nicola Mandala, boss of the town of Villabate, Sicily, who was in direct contact with Provenzano.

Mandala is currently on trial in Palermo for murder and organized crime activity.