Former Premier Gets 24 Years in ’79 Killing

An Italian court sentenced former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti to 24 years in prison Sunday on charges of complicity in the 1979 murder of a muckraking journalist, overturning a previous acquittal.

The shock ruling took Italy and the seven-time prime minister by surprise.

Andreotti, 83 and a senator for life, had been acquitted of the charges three years ago, after accusations first leveled by a Mafia turncoat.

The court also convicted Gaetano Badalamenti -- a Mafia boss already serving a prison term in the United States in a drug case -- for his alleged part in the murder conspiracy, the defendants’ lawyers said Sunday.

Andreotti will remain free while he appeals to Italy’s highest appeals court.

Andreotti has always denied the charges relating to the killing of Mino Pecorelli.

“I have always believed in justice, and I continue to believe, even if this evening I find it difficult to accept such an absurdity,” Andreotti, who had been waiting for the decision at his apartment in Rome, said in a statement.

According to prosecutors, Andreotti’s aides, in collusion with the Mafia, conspired to kill Pecorelli because he was about to publish revelations that could have ruined Andreotti’s career.

Pecorelli was shot four times by an unidentified gunman in Rome as he was returning home from his newsroom.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi condemned Sunday’s decision, arguing that it proved his frequent assertions that judges are politically biased against conservatives.

“The 24-year sentence imposed on Sen. Andreotti is the ultimate stage of a judicial scheme through which politicized sectors of the magistrature have tried to change the course of democratic politics and try to rewrite Italian history,” Berlusconi said.