Italian Senate Passes Tough New Bills to Battle Organized Crime
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ROME — As Italy buried its top Mafia fighter Friday, the Senate approved tough new bills to fight organized crime.
Meanwhile, police in Palermo, the Mafia’s Sicilian stronghold, arrested the first suspect in Sunday’s car-bomb assassination of Judge Paolo Borsellino and five of his bodyguards, state television and the ANSA news agency reported.
The legislation passed by the Senate had been urged for years by Borsellino and his colleagues.
Approval by the Chamber of Deputies is expected next week, and the government says it will implement the measures immediately.
The sweeping legislation would give more protection to police informants and repentant mobsters, who are vital to cracking the Mafia’s code of silence.
A national “super-prosecutor” would direct the country’s crackdown on the Mafia and related crime.
The legislation also would permit police to make block-to-block house searches and employ more wiretapping.
The Senate voted 163 to 106 to approve the legislation.
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