PALERMO. The police arrested the candidate for the Palermo City Council of Fratelli d’Italia, Francesco Lombardo, and the mafioso Vincenzo Vella, boss of Brancaccio, already convicted three times for mafia association on charges of political-mafia electoral exchange. The aspiring city councilor, on May 28, would have met the mafia and asked him for support in next Sunday’s elections. To reveal the request for electoral support was a Trojan placed in the phone of the boss, recently released from prison for a technicality after a 20-year sentence for mafia association. The police immediately forwarded the interception to the prosecutor who asked the investigating judge to be remanded in prison for both of them.
The investigation is coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Paolo Guido. Two days ago, a candidate for the Forza Italia city council and a mafia builder ended up in a cell for the same crime.
Lombardo is a former municipal councilor of Villabate. In Sunday’s elections he had run for the Palermo City Council. Vella served two final sentences for mafia association. He had recently been sentenced to 20 years, but a year ago the appeal court had overturned the sentence for a formal defect: for this reason he had been released from prison and was free. Also in this case, as happened for the Forza Italia councilor arrested on Wednesday, an environmental interception was decisive. The two would have met on 28 May and during the meeting the politician would have asked the boss for electoral support.