Vittorio Mangano (18 August 1940 – 23 July 2000) was a member of the Sicilian

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

Cosa Nostra The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily ...

. He was well known as the stable keeper at the villa of

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies f ...

in Arcore in the 1970s and as such Mangano is known as ''"lo stalliere di Arcore"'' (the stable keeper of Arcore). Berlusconi later became

Prime Minister of Italy The Prime Minister of Italy, officially the President of the Council of Ministers ( it, link=no, Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of president of the Council of Ministers is ...

Revelations during Maxi Trial in Palermo

During the

Maxi Trial The Maxi Trial ( it, Maxiprocesso) was a criminal trial against the Sicilian Mafia that took place in Palermo, Sicily. The trial lasted from 10 February 1986 (the first day of the Corte d'Assise) to 30 January 1992 (the final day of the Supreme ...

in the mid-1980s the Mafia turncoats (

pentiti ''Pentito'' (; lit. "repentant"; plural: ''pentiti'') is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public ...

Tommaso Buscetta Tommaso Buscetta (; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was an Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization. Buscetta participated i ...

and

Salvatore Contorno Salvatore Contorno (; born 28 May 1946), called Totuccio, is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who turned into a state witness (''pentito'') against Cosa Nostra in October 1984, following the example of Tommaso Buscetta. He gave detailed acco ...

, 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 Pippo is the diminutive of the Italian names Filippo and Giuseppe, and it may refer to: People * Pippo Barzizza (1902–1994), Italian Maestro and composer *Pippo Baudo (born 1936), Italian television presenter * Pippo Caruso (1935–2018), Italian ...

. Buscetta himself was a member of this family.

Hired to work in Arcore at Berlusconi's villa

From 1973 to 1975 Mangano was hired as ''stable keeper'' at the ''Villa San Martino'' owned by

in Arcore, a small town near

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. 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 who advised to take Mangano for the job. Mangano took care of the Villa's security and sometimes took Berlusconi's children to school. According to pentito

Antonino Giuffrè Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè (; born 21 July 1945) 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. Giuffrè was known in Mafia circles as (" ...

, Mangano served as a go between for the Mafia boss

Stefano Bontade Stefano Bontade (23 April 1939 – 23 April 1981) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. His actual surname was Bontate. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the ''Principe di Villagrazia'' (Prin ...

: "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.Berlusconi accused of Mafia links
BBC News, January 8, 2003

Mangano's criminal record

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 Emanuele Borsellino (; scn, Pàulu Borsellino; 19 January 1940 – 19 July 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying t ...

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 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'' (; lit. "repentant"; plural: ''pentiti'') is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public ...

Salvatore Cancemi Salvatore Cancemi (; 19 March 1942 – 14 January 2011) was an Italians, Italian mobster and member of the Sicily, Sicilian Sicilian Mafia, Mafia from Palermo. He is the first member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission that turned himself in volu ...

disclosed that Berlusconi's company Fininvest, through Marcello Dell'Utri 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 In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act, also known as carcere duro ("hard prison regime"), is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations. Currently ...

. The underlying premise was that Cosa Nostra would support Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in return for political favours.Berlusconi friend on trial for 'aiding Mafia'
The Guardian, May 10, 2001

Murder of Giuseppe Pecoraro and Giovambattista Romano

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 on December 7, 1974.

Death in prison

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,

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

). 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 described Mangano as a great man who went to prison because he refused to say false things against Berlusconi.Berlusconi: "Perizie per i pm" Dell'Utri: "Mangano un eroe"
La Repubblica, April 8, 2008 The following day, April 9, during a show on television channel

La7 La7 is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned by Cairo Communication. Until 2013 it was a pay-per-view channel owned by Telecom Italia Media and operated by Telecom Italia. Signal overspill means that parts of Albania, Croatia, Swi ...

Berlusconi supported that declaration by saying "Marcello Dell'Utri is right: Mangano was a hero, because he never said anything about me".

Arrest of Cinzia Mangano

On September 24, 2013, Vittorio Mangano's daughter and son-in-law, Cinzia Mangano and Enrico Di Grusa, were arrested by Italian police forces during a round-up within a Mafia probe into money laundering.

References

* Travaglio, Marco & Elio Veltri (2001). ''L'odore dei soldi. Origini e misteri delle fortune di Silvio Berlusconi'', Rome:

Editori Riuniti Editori Riuniti is an Italian publishing house based in Rome that publishes books and magazines on the history of socialism, socialist thought, physics and mathematics theory, and the history of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Histor ...

External links

Relationship between Mangano and Dell'Utri (italian sentences)

La Repubblica, July 17, 2000.

La Repubblica, July 23, 2000. * , RadioDue, April 9, 2008. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mangano, Vittorio 1940 births 2000 deaths Gangsters from Palermo Italian crime bosses