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Laundry betrays reputed No. 1 Mafia boss in Sicily Ending 43-year manhunt

Photo: Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano is escorted by a black-hooded police officer on Tuesday.

In the end, Italy's No. 1 fugitive and reputed Mafia "boss of bosses" was done in not by an informer or a rival gangster, but by clean laundry. Police tracked the package of clothes to a farmhouse where Bernardo (The Tractor) Provenzano was hiding and closed in when they saw his hand reach through the doorway to take it Tuesday. The capture came in the countryside outside Provenzano's power base, Corleone, the town that inspired the family name in The Godfather. For more than 40 years, he had practically thumbed his nose at authorities. He counted on Sicilians' centuries-old mistrust of the state to help him on the run, sleeping in islanders' homes, having his children born at local hospitals, even sending the public health care system a bill for prostate treatment abroad under a false name. Provenzano, 73, had escaped capture so often since going into hiding in 1963 that he earned a place in the Italian imagination as The Phantom of Corleone. He got his nickname The Tractor for the determination he displayed in a mob career that began as a hitman. He is believed to have taken over leadership of the Sicilian Mafia following the 1993 arrest of former boss Salvatore (Toto) Riina. During his years on the run, Provenzano was convicted in absentia and given life sentences for more than a dozen murders of mobsters and investigators. "Bastard! Murderer!" a crowd shouted at Provenzano as black-hooded policemen took him out of a sedan and rushed him into the courtyard of a police building in Palermo after driving him from the countryside. Wearing tinted glasses and a wind-breaker, the grey-haired Provenzano held up his handcuffed hands as he was hustled away but made no audible comment. Investigators described an extensive operation to track down the mobster. They said cameras that can see up to almost two kilometres were trained on suspected accomplices as well as the Corleone home where Provenzano's wife and children live. A few days ago, police noticed a package leave the wife's house, then get delivered by car to a series of other homes. On Tuesday morning, the package left Corleone and was driven to the farmhouse where Provenzano was found staying with a shepherd who doubled as a housekeeper. "This morning he reached out with a hand to grab the package and that's when we decided to move in," said Nicola Cavaliere, a top police official in Rome.

Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor, Piero Grasso, told reporters in Rome that Provenzano was "impassive" and "didn't say a word" when arrested, but later acknowledged his identity. The last photos that investigators had of the mobster showed him as a young man, but police gave the fugitive a "new face" last year, issuing a composite picture drawn with help from a Mafia turncoat in 2001 that depicted him with white hair and hollow cheeks. That effort also was helped by descriptions from personnel at a clinic in Marseilles, France, where investigators say Provenzano sought treatment for a prostate tumour two years ago. Turncoats had told investigators that Provenzano slept in different farmhouses every few nights across Sicily, an island where organized crime has held sway for decades. He allegedly gave orders with written notes, not trusting cellphone conversations for fear of being monitored by police. Grasso said investigators were studying notes found at the farmhouse, along with a typewriter Provenzano apparently used for writing them. After taking over the top leadership, Provenzano helped the Mafia spread its tentacles into the lucrative world of public works contracts in Sicily, turning the mob into more of a white-collar industry of illegal activity with less dependence on traditional operations like drug trafficking and extortion, investigators have said. During the years when Riina was the Mafia chieftain, murders bloodied Sicily. Mob rivals, police, prosecutors and their bodyguards, and sometimes bystanders, were cut down by bombings and drive-by shootings. Then the bomb assassinations in Sicily of Italy's two top anti-Mafia fighters, magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two months apart in 1992 galvanized many Sicilians against the mob, helping chip away at the centuries-old "omerta," the island's code of silence and mistrust of authorities. Provenzano was among the Mafia bosses convicted of ordering Falcone's slaying, but as mob boss he allowed fewer sensational killings and ordered more infiltration of seemingly respectable people into real estate and financial markets, Grasso has said. Some mobsters considered as potential new leaders for the Sicilian Mafia Italian investigators say it's not clear who might emerge as the Sicilian Mafia's new top boss, but they will be closing watching aides to the just captured Bernardo (The Tractor) Provenzano. Among them: -Matteo Messina Denaro, 43, from Trapani, whom some consider the mob's No. 2 man. He has been on the wanted list since 1993 for murder and other crimes. -Salvatore Lo Piccolo, in his 60s, from Palermo. He has been a fugitive since 1998 for alleged involvement in murders. -By Luca Burno And Frances Emelio

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Romano Prodi wins Italian election Photo: Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi gestures during a press conference in Chigi palace, in Rome, Tuesday. Centre-left economist Romano Prodi emerged the winner of Italy's election by a razor-thin margin Tuesday, promising to form a strong government able to run a deeply divided country mired in economic stagnation. But Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi claimed voting irregularities and demanded a recount. The dispute could usher in a period of uncertainty over the results, a process which could take weeks. The outcome of the election must be approved by Italy's highest court, and it is up the president to give the head of the winning coalition a mandate to form a government Even if the result is confirmed, prospects of a stable government under Prodi look cloudy at best. Many fear a return to the political chaos that has characterized Italian history since the end of the Second World War. There have been 60 governments in about as many years. In addition to a weak popular mandate, Prodi would preside over a potentially unwieldy coalition. The centre-left, while built on two mainstream parties, includes a mixed group of smaller formations ranging from Catholics to Communists. Prodi, a former prime minister and European Union chief, played down the divisions within his coalition. He said previous governments have been weaker and called his alliance "politically and technically strong." "We have won after an intense battle, but we have a majority both in the Senate and in the lower house that allows us to govern," Prodi said. Berlusconi, a billionaire media mogul who has served as prime minister for the past five years, refused to concede defeat for his centre-right coalition. "Nobody now can say they have won," he said. Prodi said he was not worried by a recount and described Berlusconi's complaints as "out of line." The public statements by the two candidates capped a day of confusion after millions of Italians voted Sunday and Monday at the end of a bitter campaign. Official results by the Interior Ministry showed Prodi's coalition winning four of the six seats in the Senate elected by Italians living abroad, giving him the margin he needs to control both houses of Italy's parliament. In the 315-member Senate, official returns showed Prodi with 158 seats to 156 for the centre-right, and one independent. But Berlusconi, speaking of the vote abroad, said "there are many irregularities and, therefore, it's possible that this is not a vote we can say is valid." Oddly enough, Berlusconi's conservative forces had pushed through the law giving the overseas Italians the right to vote in 2001 in one of its first pieces of legislation. The law created four huge electoral districts to represent overseas Italians, giving them 12 new seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies and six in the Senate. Prodi can count on a comfortable majority in the Chamber of Deputies, despite the narrowest of winning margins - 49.8 per cent for his coalition compared to 49.7 per cent for Berlusconi's. Thanks to a new, fully proportional electoral system pushed through by the conservatives against the centre-left's opposition, the winning coalition in the lower house gets at least 340 deputies, or 55 per cent of seats, regardless of its margin of victory. But with Prodi's coalition winning the lower house by about 25,000 out of the 38 million votes cast, Berlusconi called for a recount. "We won't hesitate to recognize the political victory for our adversaries, but only once the necessary legal verification procedures have been completed," Berlusconi said. The Interior Ministry said parliament's election committees would have to rule on any challenges. Coming back from a consistent gap in the polls before the election, Berlusconi's forces gained about half of the popular vote. Berlusconi even suggested that should the two houses of parliament be divided between the two coalitions after the vote is certified, Italy could follow Germany's model and create a "grand coalition" between the left and right. "I think that we maybe need to take the example of another European country, perhaps like Germany, to see if there's not a case to unify our forces to govern in agreement," he said. Prodi quickly dismissed the suggestion. "Regarding the grand coalition, we went before voters with a precise coalition and the electoral law assigned us a number of legislators in the Chamber and in the Senate that allows us to govern," he said. -By Alexandro Risso. _____________________________________ Handwriting experts don't come to Saddam trial, court adjourned until Monday Saddam Hussein and one of his co-defendants have refused to give handwriting samples for experts to authenticate signatures said to be theirs on key documents in their trial, the chief judge said Wednesday. Handwriting experts had been due to testify Wednesday in the trial, but they did not show up at court, forcing chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman to adjourn until Monday after a session that lasted only about five minutes. Prosecutors told Abdel-Rahman that the analysts had not yet finished their work. Saddam and his seven co-defendants did not attend the session. The documents, presented by the prosecution during the six-month-old trial, concern a crackdown on Shiites launched by Saddam's security forces after an assassination attempt on the former leader in the town of Dujail in 1982. Among them is a document said to be signed by Saddam approving death sentences for 148 Shiites, as well as numerous memos and letters from the Mukhabarat intelligence agency and Saddam's office. Saddam and the former members of his regime face a possible death sentence if convicted over the deaths of the 148 Shiites, as well as the imprisonment of hundreds of others, some of whom say they were tortured in custody. Saddam has refused to confirm or deny whether some of the signatures are his, while some of his co-defendants have outright said their alleged signatures on the documents are forgeries. Abdel-Rahman said in Wednesday's's session that Saddam and co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim - Saddam's half-brother and the former head of the Mukhabarat - had so far refused an order to provide writing samples. Still, he appeared surprised when the experts did not appear. "They were supposed to come," he said, telling the prosecutors, "You as the prosecution general are supposed to inform the experts to come. Legally, it's your duty to do so." The prosecutor responded that the experts needed more time. Prosecutors have nearly finished presenting their case in the trial. The defence is due to present its arguments in upcoming sessions. U.S. officials observing the trial have said the five-member panel of judges could issue a verdict and sentence as soon as June. Saddam has acknowledged ordering the 148 Shiites put on trial before the Revolutionary Court that sentenced them to death. But he and his co-defendants have argued that their actions were justified because they were responding to the assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader. The prosecution has sought to show that the crackdown went far beyond those behind the attack and sought to punish the entire town of Dujail. They have presented documents showing entire families - including women and children - were among those imprisoned for years and that children as young as 11 years old were among those sentenced to death. Dujail residents have testified in court that they were tortured with electrical shocks and beatings during their interrogations.  In the meantime, the tribunal is preparing to launch a second trial of Saddam - along with six other co-defendants - on genocide charges in connection with the military's Anfal Campaign against Kurds in the 1980s that killed an estimated 100,000 people. They would likely face a death sentence in that trial as well.- By Mariam Farm. Entrez votre code d'accès - Enter your access code AlloPass http://www.alloass.com

Iran claims success in uranium enrichment Photo: Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani speaks during the weekly Friday prayer sermon at Tehran university, 03 March 2006. Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a major development in its quest to produce nuclear fuel, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani said Tuesday. The UN Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all uranium enrichment activity by April 28. Iran has rejected the demand, saying it has a right to develop the process. The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, is due in Iran this week for talks to try to resolve the standoff. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday Iran ''will soon join the club of countries possessing nuclear technology.'' Speaking to a crowd in northeastern Iran, Ahmadinejad said: ''Enemies can't dissuade the Iranian nation from the path of progress that it has chosen.'' Ahmadinejad was expected to announce the successful uranium enrichment later Tuesday in a nationally televised speech. But Rafsanjani - who heads the powerful Expediency Council, a key governing body - released the news first in an interview with the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) in Tehran. Soon after, the Expediency Council released a statement confirming the announcement. ''Iran has put into operation the first unit of 164 centrifuges, has injected (uranium gas) and has got the product (enriched uranium),'' Rafsanjani said, according to the council statement. ''Of course, this operation has to expand in order to reach industrial scale.'' Rafsanjani did not say how much uranium was enriched. Iran's nuclear chief, Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said Iran has produced 110 tonnes of uranium gas, the feedstock for enrichment. The amount is nearly twice the 60 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride, or UF-6, gas that Iran said last year that it had produced. Enriching uranium to a low level produces fuel for nuclear reactors. To a higher level, it produces the material for a nuclear bomb. Iran would require thousands of operating centrifuges to produce sufficient uranium for either purpose. But once the unit of 164 centrifuges is up and running, its scientists can work to perfect the technology for larger-scale production. The reported breakthrough came only two months after Iran resumed research on enrichment at its facility in the central town of Natanz in February. The resumption of work there prompted ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran to the UN Security Council - escalating the standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions. The United States and some countries in Europe accuse Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, an accusation Tehran denies, saying it intends only to generate electricity. The U.S. is pressing for sanctions against Iran, a step Russia and China have so far opposed. In London, a spokesman for the British Foreign Office recalled that Iran was under UN Security Council orders to ''resume full and sustained suspension of all its enrichment.'' ''The latest Iranian statement is not particularly helpful,'' the spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy. Rafsanjani said the breakthrough would put Iran in a good position for the visit of ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ''When ElBaradei arrives in Iran, he will face new circumstances,'' Rafsanjani said, according to KUNA. In Vienna, officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors are now in Iran, declined to comment on the report. But a diplomat familiar with Tehran's enrichment program said it appeared to be accurate. He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss information restricted to the agency. It was not clear why the announcement came first from Rafsanjani, who is heading to Kuwait on Wednesday. The ultra-conservative Ahmadinejad defeated Rafsanjani, who had the support of Iran's reformists, in presidential elections last year. Rafsanjani may have been trying to upstage the president and show Iranians that he remains powerful. The enrichment process is one of the most difficult steps in developing a nuclear program. It requires a complicated plumbing network of pipes connecting centrifuges that can operate flawlessly for months or years. The enrichment process can take years to produce a gas rich enough in uranium-235 that it can be used to power a nuclear reactor or produce a bomb. _____________________________________________ UN ends unrestricted political contacts with Palestinians The United Nations said Tuesday it has ended its policy of unrestricted political contacts with the Palestinians and will now assess every request for political talks with the new Hamas-run government. The new UN policy follows bans on contacts with Hamas by Israel, Canada, the United States and the European Union, which consider the militant group a terrorist organization. Hamas' refusal to renounce its violent, anti-Israel ideology after its victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January has also led Israel and the West to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars from the new government, which is now bankrupt. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said "working contacts" between the UN and the new Palestinian government will ensure that there is no disruption in the delivery of UN humanitarian aid and services to the Palestinian people. "The issue of political contacts, above and beyond the humanitarian assistance, will be dealt with as they arise . . . on a case by case basis," he said. While Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for the results of the Palestinian election to be respected, Dujarric said he has also joined the United States, the EU and Russia in demanding that Hamas recognize Israel, accept past Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements and renounce violence. So far, Hamas has refused to accept the demands by the so-called Quartet, which wants to get the Palestinians and Israelis back on the "road map" peace plan which culminates in two states living side by side in peace. The UN spokesman refused to call the new UN policy "a downgrading of political relations" and denied that the UN was trying to punish the Palestinians. Dujarric said the UN's top Middle East envoy, Alvaro de Soto, "is free to meet with whomever the secretary general asks him to meet, or gives him permission to meet." He said the new policy would also cover political contacts with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate whose Fatah party lost to Hamas in the recent legislative elections. ________________________________________

Suicide bombing kills 57 - including 2 attackers - at Pakistan prayer service Photo: Pakistani volunteers remove an injured person from the site of a bomb explosion in Karachi. Two suicide attackers detonated a bomb during an outdoor Sunni prayer service Tuesday, killing at least 55 people and wounding dozens. In the mayhem that followed, angry mobs torched cars and hurled rocks at police, who fired warning shots in the air. The explosion occurred near leaders of the Sunni Tehrik group, which helped organize the prayer service at a downtown Karachi park, police Chief Niaz Siddiqui said. The leaders were sitting near a stage erected in front of the thousands marking the birth of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Several leaders were killed. "The bomber used about five kilograms of explosives obtained locally, and we have collected his body parts," Siddiqui told The Associated Press on Tuessday. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the government of southern Sindh province of which Karachi is the capital, said 57 people - including two bombers - died in the bombing and about 100 were injured. The spokesman, Salahuddin Haider, said two headless bodies were found in the aftermath, indicating a pair of attackers. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf condemned the attack and ordered increased security at religious sites, adding that the culprits "will not go unpunished," according to a statement issued on Pakistan's state-run news agency. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the bombing, one of the deadliest ever in Pakistan. Attacks in the past have been linked to simmering Shiite-Sunni Muslim tensions, and most have been blamed on outlawed extremist groups. Mayhem erupted after the explosion. Scores of men wearing white, blood-splattered robes clambered onto the stage to assist victims, some apparently dead and others wounded and waving their arms for help. "I saw body parts everywhere," Mohammed Asif said. "I saw people collecting body parts and putting them into ambulances." Crowds of people ran frantically in different directions, many aiding and carrying the wounded to dozens of ambulances. Some waved green flags bearing Quranic scripture. Others wept openly. A thick cloud of white smoke from the blast hung above the park. Police officers fired into the air to disperse crowds that massed at the scene. Soon after the bombing, violence erupted in nearby areas as groups of youths burned a gas station, buses and several cars. Another mob pelted security forces with stones after the blast. Television footage inside several Karachi hospitals showed scores of victims being treated in crowded wards. A screaming woman wailed over a person killed in the blast, the body covered by a white sheet on a hospital bed. A young boy with burns on his face said he was praying in the park when the massive blast went off. "I saw fire and smoke after the big explosion," the unidentified boy told Geo television. Two prominent Sunni Muslim clerics were among the dead: Akram Qadri, a senior leader of Tehrik, and Karachi Sheik Hanif Billu, government and hospital officials said. "Whoever did this was not a Muslim," said another Tehrik leader, Tanveer Shafi. Tuesday's explosion was Pakistan's deadliest since March 19, 2005, when a bomb killed 43 people at a Shiite shrine in the southwestern Baluchistan provincial town of Naseerabad. On March 2, a suicide bomber who was blocked from driving into the U.S. Consulate instead slammed into an American diplomat's car, killing the envoy and three others just days before U.S. President George W. Bush visited. -By Zara Khan. ________________________________ Police block pro-democracy activists' march in Kathmandu, arrest dozens Police foiled pro-democracy activists' plans to hold a mass rally Wednesday in the heart of Kathmandu and detained dozens of protesters. After days of sometimes violent demonstrations demanding King Gyanendra restore democracy, officials lifted the curfew that had kept the capital in virtual lockdown for days and people poured into streets that had remained empty for nearly a week. But police and soldiers were out in force around Kathmandu, and curfews remained in place in two other cities - Pokhara and Bharatpur. There were also reports of scattered protests in other parts of the Himalayan kingdom. Protesters in Kathmandu had planned to march from several points and converge in the capital's centre for a mass rally, defying the royal government's ban on demonstrations. But police stopped at least a half dozen processions of a few hundred people each that were making their way toward the Shahid Manch, an open area in the centre of Kathmandu where political rallies were held until the government banned such gatherings last year after Gyanendra seized power. The area was also cordoned off by hundreds of policemen, who even threatened pedestrians, and some 20 protesters who managed to slip through police lines were promptly arrested. Nepal's seven-party opposition alliance intended Wednesday's rally to be the latest in a series of protests that have hit the country since the start of a general strike on April 6. Nepal's communist rebels are allied with the parties and are backing the strike and protests. That has prompted the government to threaten harsher measures against demonstrators, which "created confusion" and may have scared people away from Wednesday's protest, said Pancha Narayan Maharjan, Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies. Across the rest of Kathmandu, residents streamed into the streets to work, shop or just enjoy life outside their homes. Gopal Shrestha was back at his small makeshift roadside stand where he sells sunglasses, relieved he'd been able to return to work. "People inside don't need sunglasses," he said. Earlier Wednesday, at least 29 journalists were arrested at a protests against the government's crackdown on the media. More than 100 other journalists have been arrested since the latest wave of protests against Gyanendra began. However, all have since been released. Gyanendra seized control of the government 14 months ago, saying he needed to stamp out political corruption and end an anti-monarchy communist insurgency that has left nearly 13,000 people dead in the past decade. The royal government has imposed severe restrictions on journalists and introduced new media laws. Criticism of the king, the government and security forces has been banned, along with independent reporting on the insurgency. On Tuesday, dozens of protesters were wounded in clashes following days of increasingly violent confrontations between security forces and protesters demanding Gyanendra give up power. Throughout the crisis, Gyanendra has remained relatively silent, spending his days in the resort town of Pokhara, and making just a single statement that called for calm but did not directly address the protesters' demands. The king was expected to make a major speech on Friday, the Nepali new year. The nationwide general strike called by the alliance stretched to a week on Wednesday, with transport, schools and businesses still shut down. The civil aviation authority said airports were open and flights were operating mostly on schedule, but passengers were forced to walk to the airport because of the few vehicles on the road. The government said it was banning strikes in essential services such as transport, hospitals, communication, distribution of fuel, banking and tourism, and that violators would be punished. Since last Thursday, there have been daily protests and clashes with security forces throughout the country. Security forces have killed three protesters and jailed more than 1,000 since then. -By B. Kurabacharya.