Rome, July 7 - The supreme court of Cassation on Friday revoked a 10-year mafia conviction against Bruno Contrada, the former number two of former Italian domestic secret service agency SISDE, now known as AISI. "After 25 years of suffering, knowing that I was innocent, finally absolution has come from Italy and from Europe," said Contrada, 85. also former Palermo police chief. In 2015 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Contrada should not have been convicted on charges of helping the Mafia. The court said the crime Contrada was convicted of, aiding and abetting a mafia-type organisation from the outside, was not defined sufficiently clearly at the time of the alleged offences, between 1979 and 1988. The court ordered the Italian State to pay Contrada 10,000 euros in damages. Contrada worked as Palermo police chief in the 1970s, as a top Criminalpol official, as a top official at the anti-Mafia commission and finally as number two at SISDE. In his trial, several former mobsters who had become State witnesses testified against him, saying that Contrada had provided Cosa Nostra with secret information on police and judicial investigations. In 2007 the supreme court upheld a 10-year prison term for Contrada, making his conviction definitive for Italian justice, after a long legal battle. Contrada has always denied the accusations, saying they were motivated by a desire for revenge. In Strasbourg, Contrada's lawyers successfully argued that the offence of aiding and abetting a mafia-type organisation from the outside results from case-law which was developed after the events occurred for which he was convicted. Conservative MPs have argued that Contrada should be able to seek redress from the judges who convicted him - a move theoretically opened up by a recent government justice reform. SISDE was replaced by AISI in 2007.