Political Connections
Stefano Bontade was very well connected. He was a member of a freemason lodge and had links with the Christian Democrat politician Salvo Lima (DC – Democrazia Cristiana) and Antonio Salvo and Ignazio Salvo, two wealthy mafia-cousins from Salemi who acted as the tax collectors on the island (tax collection was contracted out by the government). Through them Bontade had access to Giulio Andreotti. Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, ruled in October 2004 that Andreotti had "friendly and even direct ties" with top men in the so-called moderate wing of Cosa Nostra, Stefano Bontade and Gaetano Badalamenti, favoured by the connection between them and Salvo Lima.
According to pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia, Andreotti contacted Bontade to try to prevent the Mafia from killing DC-politician Piersanti Mattarella. Mattarella became the President of the autonomous Sicilian Region in 1978 and wanted to clean up the government’s public contracts racket that benefitted Cosa Nostra. Bontade and other mafiosi felt betrayed by Mattarella (his father Bernardo Mattarella was rumored to be associated with the Mafia, but all accusations against him were not proven before any court of law).
Andreotti’s attempt failed. After the murder of Mattarella on January 6, 1980, Andreotti again contacted Bontade to try to straighten things out. However, according to Marino Mannoia, Bontade told Andreotti: "we are in charge in Sicily, and unless you want the whole DC canceled out, you do as we say."
Stefano Bontade was also in touch with Silvio Berlusconi in the mid-1970s, when Berlusconi still was just a wealthy real estate developer and started his private television empire (Berlusconi became prime minister in 1994, 2001–2006, and again from 2008). Bontade visited Berlusconi's villa in Arcore on the outskirts of Milan, according to Antonino Giuffrè, a mafioso who was a key aide to Mafia kingpin Bernardo Provenzano but turned state witness after his arrest in April 2002. Bontade’s contact at Arcore was the late Vittorio Mangano, a convicted mafioso who used to be a stable manager there. "When Vittorio Mangano got the job in the Arcore villa, Stefano Bontade and some of his close aides used to meet Berlusconi using visits to Mangano as an excuse," Giuffrè said. Berlusconi's lawyer dismissed Giuffrè's testimony as "false" and an attempt to discredit the Prime Minister and his party.
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