Mafia Boss Jars Italy's Lawmakers

The Wall Street Journal reports:

A top mobster serving multiple life sentences for ordering a series of deadly bombings is expected to testify Friday in a trial that has stirred up anxiety among the political allies of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Giuseppe Graviano is due to be called to the stand in the appeals trial of a former employee of one of Mr. Berlusconi's companies who is challenging a nine-year prison sentence for colluding with the Mafia.

Prosecutors in Palermo, where the trial is taking place, are expected to ask Mr. Graviano whether he can corroborate and elaborate on comments made last week by a former Mafia hitman, Gasparre Spatuzza, people familiar with the trial say. Mr. Spatuzza testified to prosecutors that Mr. Graviano told him that Mr. Berlusconi "practically put the country in our hands" before he was elected to his first term as prime minister in the spring of 1994.

Gianfranco Fini, a co-founder of Mr. Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party and Speaker of Italy's Lower House of Parliament, on Nov. 6 described the trial as an "atomic bomb" that could rip apart Mr. Berlusconi's coalition government. Mr. Fini's spokesman confirmed his comment, which was heard over an open microphone at a ceremony commemorating a prosecutor killed by the Mafia.

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