(ANSA) - Palermo, December 11 - Two Mafia bosses on Friday refuted testimony by a Cosa Nostra turncoat casting doubt on his allegations that Premier Silvio Berlusconi and a close aide were in cahoots with the Mafia. Testifying at the appeals trial of Senator Marcello Dell'Utri, a long-time aide to Berlusconi, Filippo Graviano said he never told hitman Gaspare Spatuzza that ''if nothing comes from where it's supposed to come we can think about talking (collaborating) with the magistrates, but first we need to talk to my brother Giuseppe''. The conversation allegedly took place in 2004 when both men were in prison together. Filippo Graviano also denied ever having met Dell'Utri. Giuseppe Graviano was also scheduled to testify on Friday but, citing health problems, exercised his right not to take the stand. Spatuzza's credibility as a witness suffered another blow when Mob chieftain Cosimo Lo Nigro took the stand and denied he had met with Giuseppe Graviano and Spatuzza at the end of 1993 to discuss the possibility of carrying out a bomb attack at Rome's Olimpico soccer stadium. According to Spatuzza, Graviano indicated during the meeting that the attack would have 'accelerated' alleged negotiations for a truce between Cosa Nostra and the state. Spatuzza is a notorious hitman for the Cosa Nostra's Brancaccio clan in Palermo, headed by the Graviano family, who is believed to have killed some 40 people, including an 11-year-old son of a turncoat whose body was then dissolved in acid. He himself later turned state's witness and last Friday testified here that Giuseppe Graviano confided to him that Berlusconi and aide Marcello Dell'Utri, had ''practically placed the country in our hands''.
Spatuzza alleged that during a meeting at a Rome bar in 1994, Graviano told him that Berlusconi and Dell'Utri, a fellow Sicilian, were ''serious people'' who had given the Mafia a hand. Dell'Utri is appealing a 2004 nine-year sentence for allegedly acting as a go-between for the Mafia with politicians, businessmen and other powerful figures in Milan. He worked for the Berlusconi holding company Fininvest from 1974 till 1994, running its profitable advertising arm, and then played a key role in creating Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in the early 1990s. He is currently a senator for the People of Freedom party which was created last year when Forza Italia merged with the right-wing national Alliance.
photo: Filippo Graviano's mug shot