Sicilian prosecutors are investigating suspicions that 'rogue elements' in Italy's secret services were involved in anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino's murder, ANSA has learned.
The news comes from sources informed of the investigation, carried out by prosecutors in the city of Caltanissetta, just two days before the 15th anniversary of Borsellino's death.
The magistrate was killed by a car bomb on July 19, 1992 as he went through the ground-floor door of the building in which his mother lived, in a residential area of Palermo.
Also killed in the blast were policemen Agostino Catalano, Zalter Cusina, Claudio Traina, Vincenzo Li Muli and Emanuela Loi, the only policewoman in the magistrate's escort.
The bomb exploded less than two months after the nation's leading anti-Mafia magistrate, Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca and three bodyguards were killed by a bomb planted under a motorway outside Palermo.
The sources said new leads regarding the remote-control devise used to trigger the Borsellino bomb have led Caltanissetta prosecutors to re-examine the possible involvement of the secret services in recent months.
They are also focusing on the suspicious presence of a police officer in the area of the murder shortly after the explosion.
The officer in question had been transferred from Palermo to Florence several months before.
A possible secret-service link to the murder was looked at as part of the initial investigation, but the line of enquiry was quickly dropped.
A Mafia turncoat who turned state's evidence at the Borsellino trial said "political interests" were behind the slaying.
Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, the boss of bosses of the Sicilian Mafia captured in Palermo in January 1993, is one of the mobsters serving time for Borsellino's murder.
The killings of Borsellino and Falcone came on top of the Tangentopoli kickbacks scandal and rocked the nation to its core.
Senate Speaker Franco Marini will be among the officials attending a ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of Borsellino's death in Palermo on Thursday.
