CNN- INTERVIEW WITH GIULIO ANDREOTTI

INTERVIEW WITH GIULIO ANDREOTTI, ITALIAN F0RMER PRIME MINISTER
REPORTER: BILL DELANEY
DATE: 9/24/1995
CNN IN ROME

Delaney: " We are here in Rome, Italy, with Giulio Andreotti, senator for life, seven time Prime Minister, the most important political figure in post-war Italy; now accused of years of ties to the mafia. Senator Andreotti, how do you respond to these charges?"

Andreotti: " My conscience is clear, because I know that in my conscience and in front of God I am guilty of nothing. I hope human justice will see at the same way."

Delaney: " How could the investigators in Sicily, then, have spent so many years assembled a possibly tens of thousands of pages of evidence against you? Is all that just frivolous? And none of that amounts to anything?"

Andreotti: " It's not a matter of my opinion; it's facts. In all of these pages there is not one single fact that indicates I ever did a direct favor for a member of the mafia.

Or that I have closed my eyes to crime by a member of the mafia. This is repeated clearly throughout the documents."

Delaney: " Yet an important segment of your political power base in the Christian Democratic Party came from Sicily. How could a man of such sweeping political power and influence in post-war Italy, not at least at times, look the other way, as to activities by the mafia?"

Andreotti: " The Christian Democratic Party traditionally, they say, have big support from the mafia in Sicily. And without any doubt there are parts in Sicily where the mafia matters. And if get votes in those areas, it could very well be that they come from mafia people."

Delaney: " So you do aknowledge that the Christian Democratic Party has mafia ties..."

Andreotti: " No. The party as a whole no. If there were candidates who could get votes, including from the mafia, that's probable. But you must be very careful. If we're going to discuss this, we need to point out it's a collective affaire. I wasn't soli in charge of Sicilian politics. Nore of the Italian politics. I was just part of those politics.

If there is a judgment in the world at the dangers of the mafia have not sufficiently confronted, this judgment should be applied collectivly. It should not be directed at one person. Infact, I have excellent potentials in the fight against the mafia. I'm not loved by them; quite the opposite!"

Delaney: " Hundreds of mafia figures that called "pentiti", they're turncoats, they're informers, have involved you, some directly, some indirectly, with mafia figures.

Some say they have hard evidence, even photographs, of you involved in such associations. How do you react to these hundreds of charges by the "pentiti"?

Andreotti: " If a citizen who's committed many crimes, instead of going to prison would say something against me or another politician, or against any other well known person, I don't know that he wouldn't have a strong temptation to do this. I don't want to be disrespectful to anybody but someone who's killed twenty people could easily tell a lie."

Delaney: " After such a long career, this might be a time when one refracts, when one takes time out to bask in the blow of a long career. Instead, you find yourself in the fight of your life. How do you react of that? How would you confront that?"

Andreotti: " Certainly it's a heavy burden which uncertainly ---------------------.

The mafia was a terrible inhumain reality. The fact that I could be friend or even acquainted to these people, from whome I feel so distant. I anything I feel these people should be fought against, -------- greater strenght and anything that's being done after now."

Delaney : " Senator for life Giulio Andreotti, thank you very much for being with us today."

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