FURBA GENTE

(ANSA) - Rome, May 10 - A former top-ranking secret service officer was on Thursday definitively convicted of helping the Mafia and sentenced to 10 years in jail. Italy's highest appeals court ended a 13-year judicial battle by upholding the guilty verdict handed down to 77-year-old Bruno Contrada a year ago.Contrada worked as Palermo police chief in the 1970s, as a top Criminalpol official, as a top official at the anti-Mafia commission and finally as number 3 at the SISDE secret services.In his trial several former mobsters who had become state's witnesses testified against him, saying that Contrada had provided Cosa Nostra with secret information on police and judicial investigations.Contrada has always denied the accusations, saying they were motivated by a desire for revenge.His lawyers are expected to request house arrest, rather than detention in a military prison, on the grounds of Contrada's age and ill health.

Write down the words Palermo-Secret Service-Lawyers-Cosa Nostra-Mafia and it could be a plot summary for a crime novel, or real life in Italy.

Furba gente...cunning people