Gunmen kill 'Mafia link man'

(First Edition)

PALERMO (Rueter) - Masked gunmen in a Mafia-style attack killed a former tax collector, Ignazio Salvo, once considered a key link between the Mafia and political power in Sicily, police said yesterday.

Salvo, a retired businessman, was shot several times in the head outside his seaside villa on Thursday night by two attackers who may have arrived by boat. The gunmen escaped.

He was convicted of Mafia association at a mass trial which sent nearly 340 gangsters to jail in 1987, and was sentenced to three years in prison. For nearly 30 years he and his cousin had administered nearly all tax-collection agencies on the island for the regional government.