Mafia wiretapped slain judge Borsellino

(ANSA) - Palermo, July 22 - The Sicilian Mafia managed to listen into the telephone calls of judge Paolo Borsellino before it slayed him, top boss Totò Riina told a fellow prison inmate in a conversation recorded by the authorities, ANSA sources said. Borsellino was killed by a car bomb near his mother's house along with five members of his security escort in July 1992. "We knew he was meant to go there because he said, 'Mum, tomorrow I'm coming,'" said Riina, who is thought to have been the head of Cosa Nostra from the early 1980s until he was arrested in 1993. Borsellino is considered by many as a sort of secular martyr.
    He is one of the main symbols of the Italian State's battle against Cosa Nostra along with his friend and fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, who was assassinated by Cosa Nostra 57 days before him. A Sicilian court is currently holding a trial into allegations senior State officials conducted negotiations with the Mafia in a bid to stop the bombing campaign in the early 1990s that claimed the lives of Borsellino and Riina.