andreotti, free again

Just under a year ago, former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti was convicted of complicity the murder of a journalist in the late 1970s. Now, according to La Repubblica, he's been declared innocent. My Italian's a bit rusty, but the gist of it seems to be that there wasn't sufficient proof of Andreotti's guilt in the matter. I don't know the details of the case (or of Italian criminal law, for that matter) to make a truly informed statement about this, but from what I have read, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of Andreotti's ties were less than reputable. Associating with alleged mafiosi isn't itself a crime, of course, but considering the levels of corruption associated with the Christian Democratic party that Andreotti headed for so long, it seems pretty likely that Andreotti engaged in some illegal activity in his day.

This should come as no surprise if you know anything about Italian politics, but the overturning of the guilty verdict really has no effect. Andreotti, you see, was exempted from actually serving his sentence on account of his age.