Vittorio Mangano
Encyclopedia
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
or Cosa Nostra. He was well known as the stable keeper at the villa of Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
in Arcore in the 1970s and as such Mangano is known as "lo stalliere di Arcore" (the stable keeper of Arcore). Berlusconi later would become Prime Minister of Italy.
During the Maxi Trial
Maxi Trial
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
in the mid-1980s the Mafia turncoats (pentiti
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
), Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...
and Salvatore Contorno
Salvatore Contorno
Salvatore "Totuccio" Contorno is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who turned into a state witness against Cosa Nostra in October 1984, following the example of Tommaso Buscetta. He gave detailed accounts of the inner-workings of the Sicilian Mafia...
, said Mangano was a "uomo d'onore" (man of honour) of Cosa Nostra and a member of the Porta Nuova family that was headed by Pippo Calò
Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
. Buscetta himself was a member of this family.
From 1973 to 1975 Mangano was hired as stable keeper at the Villa San Martino owned by Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
in Arcore, a small town near Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. Mangano's real job is alleged to have been to deter kidnappers from targeting the tycoon's children. It was Berlusconi's right-hand man Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi...
who advised to take Mangano for the job. Mangano took care of the Villa's security and sometimes took Berlusconi's children to school.
Berlusconi kept Mangano as an employee despite his criminal record dating back to the 1960s. He never dismissed him even when, during his time as employee in the Villa, he was imprisoned because of convictions, and suspected of arranging the kidnapping of a friend of Berlusconi. Mangano left spontaneously in late 1975, concerned about Berlusconi's reputation, when many newspapers started making a scandal about his stay at Arcore. Berlusconi later stated that he was absolutely unaware of who Mangano really was when he hired him.
Public prosecutor Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
named Mangano in his last interview on May 19, 1992, with the reporters Jean Pierre Moscardo and Fabrizio Calvi. Borsellino spoke about the relations and connections of the Mafia with business and politics. According to Borsellino, Mangano was the link between the Sicilian Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
and its interests in Northern Italy. Borsellino was killed two months after this interview by a car bomb in Via D'Amelio.
The pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
Salvatore Cancemi
Salvatore Cancemi
Salvatore Cancemi was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He would be the first member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission that turned himself in voluntarily and became a pentito, a collaborator with the Italian judicial authorities...
disclosed that Berlusconi's company Fininvest
Fininvest
Fininvest is a financial holding company controlled by Silvio Berlusconi's family and managed by Silvio Berlusconi's eldest daughter Marina Berlusconi.-Structure:...
, through Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi...
and Mangano, had paid Cosa Nostra 200 million lire (100 000 euro) annually. The alleged contacts, according to Cancemi, were to lead to legislation favourable to Cosa Nostra, in particular the harsh article 41-bis prison regime
Article 41-bis prison regime
In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations...
. The underlying premise was that Cosa Nostra would support Berlusconi's Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....
party in return for political favours.
According to pentito Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002....
, Mangano served as a go between for the Mafia boss Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
: "When Vittorio Mangano got the job in the Arcore villa, boss Stefano Bontade and some of his close aides used to meet Berlusconi using visits to Mangano as an excuse." Giuffrè told the Palermo court that despite the prime minister's assertions to the contrary, Mangano's Mafia identity was known when he was hired at the villa.
Mangano was sentenced to life imprisonment on July 19, 2000 for the murder of Giuseppe Pecoraro and Giovambattista Romano in January 1995. Moreover, he was suspected to be responsible for the kidnapping of Luigi D'Angerio after a dinner in the Silvio Berlusconi's Villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
on December 7, 1974.
Mangano died a few days after the verdict on July 23, 2000 in jail. He had been imprisoned five years before because of other crimes (drug trade
Drug trade
Drug trade may refer to:* Illegal drug trade, the manufacture and sale of illicit psychoactive substances* Pharmaceutical industry, the manufacture and sale of medical treatment chemicals...
, extortion
Extortion
Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime...
). He died of a cancer. The epigraph of his tombstone is «rifiutò di barattare la sua dignità con la libertà» (he refused to barter his dignity for freedom).
During an interview on April 8, 2008, Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi...
described Mangano as a great man who went to prison because he refused to say false things against Berlusconi. The following day, April 9, during a show on La7
La7
La7 is an Italian television channel owned by Telecom Italia Media and operated by Telecom Italia.-History:In 2001, Lorenzo Pellicioli and Roberto Colaninno, of Telecom Italia announced they had acquired Telemontecarlo, in order to create a strong competitor against the six other national channels...
channel Berlusconi supported that declaration by saying "Marcello Dell'Utri is right: Mangano was a hero, because he never invented anything about me".