Seven-times Italian premier Giulio Andreotti helped the Mafia before the murder of a top party memberin 1980, Italy's highest court said here on Tuesday.

Publishing the reasoning behind its recent sentence upholding Andreotti's acquittal on later Mafia charges, the court said the prosecution had shown Mafia defectors were credible in claiming the Christian Democrat heavyweight was "friendly" to top bosses before then.

In its ruling in October, the Cassation Court said Andreotti could not be punished for his earlier ties because they happened too long ago.

The October 15 ruling by the Court of Cassation was the last inItaly's three-tiered justice system and put a definitive end to Andreotti's decade-long legal woes.

It said that Andreotti had shown "real, solid and friendly openness towards mafiosi" before the spring of 1980.

It cited the 85-year-old life senator's "friendly and even direct ties" with old-guard Mafia chieftain Stefano Bontade, who was gunned down in 1981, and boss Gaetano Badalamenti, who died this year while serving a 20-year sentence in the United States for drug crimes.

It said the former leading light of the now defunct Christian Democrats drew electoral support from the Mafia in exchange for political favours.

But it said there was no evidence to support a Mafia turncoat'snotorious claim that Andreotti met and exchanged a ritual kiss of honour with now jailed Boss of Bosses, Toto "the Beast" Riina.

In 1980 the Mafia killed Piersanti Mattarella, the reform-minded DC president of the Sicilian regional government.

But the ruling underscored a radical change in the former premier's behaviour from that time on, when it said he launched a "real crackdown on the Mafia."

It attributed the turnaround to Mattarella's murder.

Source: Xinhua