HOPE & JUSTICE
A million times we've needed you, A million times we've cried. If our love could have saved you, You never would have died.
The Parliament should be open, but not open to manipulation.
Some politicians may well have a cherubic grin and a Churchillian girth, yet they seem to refuse to follow one of the great Prime Minister's maxims. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity.
Crime & Punishment Italy Looks Hard at Justice System After Conviction of Seven-Time Former Premier Giulio Andreotti
He started as a librarian at the Vatican, helped draft Italy's constitution and served seven times as premier. Now judges say Giulio Andreotti is also a murderer.
The 83-year-old Andreotti who more than anyone represents the growth of Italy through good and bad from the end of Fascism to the early 1990s was found guilty Sunday and sentenced to 24 years imprisonment for ordering the Mafia to kill a muckraking journalist in 1979. The court overturned a 1999 acquittal on the same charges.
Central to this debate is Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire businessman who has long been dogged by accusations that he used illegal methods to amass his fortune. Berlusconi contends that Italian prosecutors are biased against conservatives such as himself and Andreotti, and that the justice system must be changed.
· Seven-Times [ABC News (US)]
Former PM plotted murder and now he's the victim
Mafia members have been singing, and the political maestro Giulio Andreotti doesn't like the score.
Is Giulio Andreotti a monster or a martyr? That is the question Italians are mulling after the seven-time prime minister was sentenced in Perugia to 24 years' jail for conspiring with the Mafia in the murder of a journalist.
His conviction over the death of Mino Pecorelli 23 years ago suggests he is a monster. But the almost unanimous reaction from prominent Italians, including the President, the Prime Minister and the head of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, is that he is a martyr.
· Monster or Martyr [Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)]
Italian court sentences Andreotti
He has been called Beelzebub, but he takes communion from popes. He is known as Mr. Italy around the world, but he also has been accused of being a member of the Mafia. Giulio Andreotti is no ordinary politician.
· [Blobe and Mail (Canada)]
· Andreotti debate engrosses Italy [The Age (Australia)]
· The man who knew too much [The Guardian (UK)]
· Little Caesar' at core of Italy's political paradox [New Zealand Herald]
· Q&A: Italy's Mafia murder shock [BBC (UK)]
· Ex-Italy PM Andreotti convicted over murder [CNN - The World]