Italy's highest appeal court has overturned guilty verdicts on 13 Mafia leaders accused of ordering the assassination of anti-mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone in 1992, but has upheld rulings against 25 other people who are serving jail terms for either ordering or carrying out the killing.
Although the court did not immediately justify its verdict, judicial experts said it considered that in the case of the 13 individuals, simply being a mafia chief was not enough to implicate them in ordering the killing.
The court ruled that new trials had to be held for the 13.
It upheld sentences against 21 other Mafia members and four Mafia chiefs, most serving life imprisonment, including the notorious Salvatore "Toto" Riina.
Riina, who is serving 15 life sentences and has been in jail since 1993, masterminded the killings of Falcone and fellow judge Paolo Borsellino, which led to a tightening of Italian legislation against organised crime.
Falcone, who won a reputation as being the Mafia's enemy number one, was killed by a half-tonne bomb which exploded under his motorcade as it drove along a motorway outside Palermo in Sicily.
His wife, Francesca Morvillo, and three police bodyguards also died in the attack.
AFP
