The ruling centre-right majority left
the Lower House during the commemoration of the first
anniversary of Silvio Berluscon's death after an opposition
leftist populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) MP said they refused to
accept the "beatification" of someone who called mafia boss
Vittorio Mangano a hero after he kept his vow of silence until
death after working as stable manager and to scare kidnappers
off at the late three-time premier and media mogul's villa
outside Milan.
"It was not a commemoration but political lynching," said
Alessandro Cattaneo of Berlusconi's old centre-right Forza
Italia (FI) party.
M5S MP Riccardo Ricciardi had said: "We do not accept the
beatification of a person who said a mafioso like Vittorio
Mangano was a hero".
Mangano, known as The Stable Keeper of Arcore, died at 59 in
2000 after being convicted of a double Cosa Nostra murder in
1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Berlusconi always officially denied knowing he was a mafioso
when he hired him in the 1970s, ostensibly to run the stables at
Arcore but in reality, Italian prosecutors have said, to protect
the mogul's then young children from the kidnappings that were
rife at the time, as well as acting as a go-between with Cosa
Nostra.
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