Mafia trial: Crime group accused of helping to bankrupt Rome appear in court via video links

A former official in Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party is among the 46 people alleged to have syphoned off hundreds of millions of euros from the city’s public funds

Luca Gramazio, a former official in Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party (EPA)

A one-eyed alleged former far-right terrorist is among the 46 people on trial as prosecutors attempt to reveal that the newly discovered Mafia Capitale crime group helped to bankrupt Rome.

Over 80 journalists crowded into the packed courtroom as the chief presiding judge, Rosanna Ianiello, began a mob-style maxi-trial, the like of which the capital has never seen. Some key suspects, including the group’s alleged leader Massimo Carminati, are considered too dangerous to be allowed into court. Carminati was a member of the far-right NAR terror group which was blamed for the 1980 Bologna train station bombing that killed 85 people and injured more than 200.

Instead, video links to Rome’s high-security Rebibbia prison will be used. Fifteen of the ring leaders were transferred there overnight. Prosecutors say Carminati, 57, and his associates leached hundreds of millions of euros from Rome’s public funds after sinking their tendrils into the city’s politics, business and administration.

Magistrates seized around €200m (£150m) in assets when the first arrests were made last December. Dubbed “the Pirate of Rome”, Carminati, who lost an eye after a shootout with police in the 1980s, was also once a member of the city’s Magliana crime gang – made famous by the television series Romanzo Criminale. Carminati’s lawyer, Giosue Naso, said that his client would testify at the trial. Carminati has not spoken to prosecutors since his arrest last December.

His chief associate, Salvatore Buzzi, a convicted murderer, is also in the dock, as are centre-left and centre-right politicians, including Luca Gramazio, the former head of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party on the regional council, and Mirko Coratti, the former head of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s centre-left Democratic Party on the Rome city council. They deny any wrongdoing.

The crime group made its millions, say prosecutors, from corrupt contracts – including those for rubbish collection, road maintenance and even migrant reception centres. “Do you have any idea how much you can make from immigrants? The drugs trade brings you less money,” Buzzi was heard saying in one wiretap. Buzzi and Carminati have denied the Mafia charges.