A Palermo judge on Wednesday acquitted former minister Calogero Mannino of charges over allegations the Italian state secretly negotiated with the Sicilian mafia in the early 1990s to stop a deadly campaign of violence.
In the fast-track trial, Mannino was cleared of threatening the body politic of the Italian state because "the crime has not been committed", said judge Marino Petruzzella.
The reasoning behind the sentence will be issued within 90 days, Petruzzella said.
Prosecutors in Palermo said they would appeal Mannino's acquittal. They had asked for a nine-year jail term for Mannino, for allegedly instigating secret talks between Italian officials and the Sicilian mafia in 1992.
In the alleged secret mafia-state talks, the harsh prison regime for mafia prisoners would be softened in exchange for a halt to the bloody bombing campaign that killed crusading anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992 and 10 people in 1993.
Separate trials are continuing of former interior minister Nicola Mancino, of a former senator now jailed for mafia association, Marcello Dell'Utri, of former police officers and ex-mafia bosses including jailed former 'boss of bosses' Salvatore Riina as well as mafia turncoats.
