47 Facts About Marcello Dell'Utri

Marcello Dell'Utri was born on 11 September 1941 and is a former Italian politician.

Marcello Dell'Utri is best known for being a senior advisor to former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, of whom he became a secretary in his early 20s and since the 1970s had worked for him at his many companies, including Publitalia '80 and Fininvest Rai.

Formerly a member of the Italian Parliament from 1996 to 2013 and of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004, Marcello Dell'Utri was found guilty of tax fraud, false accounting, and complicity in conspiracy with the Sicilian Mafia, known as Cosa Nostra; the conviction for the last charge was upheld on 9 May 2014 by the Supreme Court of Cassation, the highest judicial court in Italy, which sentenced Marcello Dell'Utri to seven years in prison.

The conviction is final and cannot be further appealed; it ruled that Marcello Dell'Utri was the mediator between Berlusconi and Cosa Nostra.

In 1974, Marcello Dell'Utri introduced Vittorio Mangano, already charged for Mafia crimes, to Berlusconi at the Villa San Martino owned by Berlusconi in Arcore, a small town near Milan.

Marcello Dell'Utri was further sentenced in April 2018 to 12 years due to the State-Mafia Pact.

In 1965, Marcello Dell'Utri moved to Rome, where for a couple of years he directed the ELIS Sports Group in the Tiburtino-Casal Bruciato district at the International Centre for Working Youth, an apostolic initiative of the Catholic Church that the Pope entrusted to Opus Dei.

Later in the 1970s, Marcello Dell'Utri went to work at Bresciano Costruzioni.

In 1995, Marcello Dell'Utri left Publitalia '80, the advertising company owned by Berlusconi.

Marcello Dell'Utri was elected to Italy's Chamber of Deputies in 1996.

Marcello Dell'Utri was elected as a member of the Senate of the Republic in 2001, and was re-elected in 2006 and 2008, taking several parliamentary roles.

On 7 July 1974, Marcello Dell'Utri brought Vittorio Mangano to Silvio Berlusconi's villa in Arcore who, according to the Court of Palermo, was hired by Berlusconi as "responsible" to prevent the entrepreneur's family members from being victims of kidnapping and not as a groom as was stated.

The Court of Palermo's sentence stated that Marcello Dell'Utri knew Mangano's "criminal depth"; referring to the hidden task of personal protection of Berlusconi and his family following explicit death threats received by them if he did not follow up on the Mafia's requests, the Court of Palermo ruled that he had chosen him precisely for this quality.

On 24 October 1976, Marcello Dell'Utri was together with Mangano and other mafiosi at the birthday party of the Catania boss Antonino Calderone held at the Le Colline Pistoiesi restaurant in Milan.

In 1977, having been made redundant by Edilnord, Marcello Dell'Utri was contacted by Filippo Alberto Rapisarda, who had relationships with prominent Mafia figures, such as Vito Ciancimino, Francesco Paolo Alamia, and the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan.

Marcello Dell'Utri was hired by Rapisarda due to their mutual knowledge since childhood at his construction company; the employment relationship with INIM ended when he was fired on the grounds that he had diverted funds from the company's coffers.

Marcello Dell'Utri then took on the role of managing director of Bresciano Costruzioni, which ended up in bankruptcy after a few years.

Marcello Dell'Utri was indicted for fraudulent bankruptcy, although he was at large and without a job, while Rapisarda fled as a fugitive to Venezuela, using a passport registered in the name of Marcello Dell'Utri's brother.

In 1982, Marcello Dell'Utri began his activity in Publitalia '80, the Fininvest advertising collection company founded in 1979 by Berlusconi, from whom he received the appointment of director.

Marcello Dell'Utri was acquitted by the Supreme Court of Cassation on the grounds that the president of Trapani's basketball team knew the Virga boss and did not perceive him as a Mafia threat.

Marcello Dell'Utri said Giuffre had perpetuated the trend that every new turncoat would attack Dell'Utri and the former Christian Democracy prime minister Giulio Andreotti in order to earn money and judicial privileges.

Marcello Dell'Utri was a member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004, and was a member of the Senate of the Republic from 2001 to 2013.

In January 1996, while he was charged in Turin for false invoices and tax fraud and under investigation in Palermo for Mafia association, Marcello Dell'Utri became a Forza Italia deputy in the Italian Parliament.

In 2001 Italian general election, Marcello Dell'Utri was elected a member of the Senate of the Republic in the first constituency of Milan.

Marcello Dell'Utri was re-elected in the 2006 Italian general election.

Marcello Dell'Utri was member and later president of the Library and Historical Archive Commission, member of the 7th Permanent Commission, member of the 13th Permanent Commission, substitute member of the Italian Parliamentary Delegation to the Assembly of the Council of Europe, and substitute member of the Italian Parliamentary Delegation to the Assembly of the Western European Union.

On 10 February 2010, Marcello Dell'Utri stated that he used politics to defend himself from his legal troubles.

Marcello Dell'Utri reiterated that he would not resign even following a conviction on appeal.

On 9 July 2015, over a year since he had been jailed after his final conviction for Mafia association, Marcello Dell'Utri's annuity was revoked, together with nine other former deputies and eight former senators.

Marcello Dell'Utri is president of the Fondazione Biblioteca di via Senato and founder of the Circolo Marcello Dell'Utri, which is named after himself.

Marcello Dell'Utri's appointment was criticized by the opposition and several councilors, as well as Vittorio Sgarbi, while Moratti defended him.

On 10 September 2007, he joined the board of directors of E Polis, which at the time was the publisher of 15 free-press newspapers throughout Italy, including the Circolo Marcello Dell'Utri, and became president of the advertising agency Publiepolis spa.

In February 2010, Marcello Dell'Utri declared that he had read a missing chapter of Petrolio, the last and unfinished novel by Pier Paolo Pasolini that was stolen after his death, announcing its exhibition at the 21th ancient book exhibition in Milan.

Marcello Dell'Utri had already been unavailable starting from the second half of March 2014 based on what was declared by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate of Palermo, to which the notification of the precautionary custody order in prison issued against him had been delegated by the Third Criminal Section of the Appellate of Palermo.

In December 2004, after seven years and 256 hearings and the examination of 270 pentiti, witnesses, and consultants, Marcello Dell'Utri was convicted in the first-instance trial for complicity in conspiracy with the Mafia and sentenced to 9 years.

Marcello Dell'Utri appealed the 2004 sentence, and the appeals trial began in 2006.

The appellate court ascertained that Marcello Dell'Utri was an intermediary and advisor to Bontade up to the year 1980 and later up to year 1992 to Riina and Provenzano for direct investments in Milan, Lombardy, and Northern Italy aimed at laundering illicit profits coming from mafia criminal activities and drug trafficking by means of financial operations in companies based in Northern Italy.

At the moment the sentence was read in Italy, Marcello Dell'Utri was already being detained in Lebanon being swiftly captured in Beirut in a joint police operation led by Interpol and Lebanese police forces.

The Supreme Court of Cassation convicted Marcello Dell'Utri of acting as a go-between for the Sicilian Mafia and the Milan business elite, including Berlusconi's companies, from 1974 to 1992.

Marcello Dell'Utri was traced down to the five-star Hotel Phoenicia through the use of his credit card and mobile phone records.

Marcello Dell'Utri was alone at the moment of his arrest and was found in possession of a large amount of cash.

Marcello Dell'Utri remained detained in custody by Lebanese authorities until the completion of the extradition procedure.

On 13 June 2014, Marcello Dell'Utri was extradited to Italy and booked into a prison in Parma, where he began serving his seven years sentence under a high-security regime.

On 3 December 2019, benefitting from an early release according to the law that reduced the 7 years sentence to 5 years and three months, the then 77-years-old Marcello Dell'Utri returned a free man, with two more years under special surveillance, to be subjected to a judicial decision if deemed to be socially dangerous.

In 2007, Marcello Dell'Utri claimed to have located a number of Mussolini diaries, which had been allegedly lost; these were later discovered to be forgeries.

On 11 February 2007, Marcello Dell'Utri announced that he had received from the children of a deceased partisan five alleged diaries handwritten by Benito Mussolini, containing notes from 1935 to 1939.

Marcello Dell'Utri was not at all a ruthless and bloodthirsty dictator like Stalin.