arrived by 20 December 2002 (limitation period). In that case, it could have resulted in one of the following two alternative outcomes: Andreotti could have been convicted based on article 416 of the Penal Code, i.e. the "simple" association, since the aggravated mafia-type association (416-bis of the Penal Code) was introduced in the Italian Penal Code only in 1982, thanks to the rapporteurs Virginio Rognoni (DC) and Pio La Torre. (PCI). The defendant could have been acquitted in full with the confirmation of the first instance judgment. In 2010, the Court of Cassation ruled that Andreotti had slandered a judge who had given testimony by saying the self-governing body of prosecutors and judges should remove him from his position. Andreotti had said that leaving the man as a judge was "like leaving a lighted fuse in the hand of a child". Trial for murder Contemporaneously with his trial for Mafia association, Andreotti was tried in Perugia with Sicilian Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti, Massimo Carminati, and others on charges of complicity in the murder of journalist Mino Pecorelli. The case was circumstantial and based on the word of Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta, who had not originally mentioned the allegation about Andreotti when interviewed by Giovanni Falcone and had recanted it by the time of the trial. Mino Pecorelli was killed in Rome's Prati district with four gunshots, on 20 March 1979. The bullets used to kill him were Gevelot brand, a peculiarly rare type of bullet not easily found on gun markets, legal and clandestine alike. The same kind of bullet was later found in the Banda della Maglianas weapon stock, concealed in the Health Ministry's basement. Investigations targeted Massimo Carminati, member of the far-right organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR) and of the Banda della Magliana, the head of Propaganda Due, Licio Gelli, Antonio Viezzer, Cristiano Fioravanti and Valerio Fioravanti. On 6 April 1993, Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta told Palermo prosecutors that he had learnt from his boss Gaetano Badalamenti that Pecorelli's murder had been carried out in the interest of Andreotti. The Salvo cousins, two powerful Sicilian politicians with deep ties to local Mafia families, were also involved in the murder. Buscetta testified that Gaetano Badalamenti told him that the Salvo cousins had commissioned the murder as a favor to Andreotti. Andreotti was allegedly afraid that Pecorelli was about to publish information that could have destroyed his political career. Among