votes to enable mutually beneficial relationships with local politicians. Andreotti said, "But Lima never spoke to me about these things." By the 1980s, the old low-profile Mafia was overthrown by the Corleonesi, an extremely violent faction led by fugitive Salvatore Riina. Whereas old Mafia bosses had been cautious about violence, Riina's targeting of anti-mafia officials proved ever more counter-productive. The 1982 murders of parliamentarian Pio La Torre and Carabinieri general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa led to the Maxi Trial. Prosecutors, who could not be disciplined or removed except by their self-government board, the CSM, were given increased powers. After January 1992 upholding of the Maxi Trial verdicts as definitive convictions by the supreme court, Riina embarked on a renewed campaign which claimed the lives of the prosecuting magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, and their police guards. As Riina intended, the assassination of Falcone discredited Andreotti and prevented him from becoming Italy's president. It also led to prosecutors being seen as an epitomising civic virtue. In January 1993, Riina was arrested in Palermo. In the aftermath of Riina's capture, there were further Mafia bomb outrages that included terror attacks on art galleries and churches, which killed ten among the audience and led to a weakening of rules on the evidence which prosecutors could use to bring charges. Labelled by Italian media as the "trial of the century", legal action against Andreotti began on 27 March 1993 in Palermo. The prosecution accused the former prime minister of "[making] available to the mafia association named Cosa Nostra for the defence of its interests and attainment of its criminal goals, the influence and power coming from his position as the leader of a political faction". Prosecutors said in return for electoral support of Lima and assassination of Andreotti's enemies, he had agreed to protect the Mafia, which had expected him to fix the Maxi Trial. Andreotti's defence was predicated on character attacks against the prosecution's key witnesses, who were themselves involved with the mafia. This created a "his word against theirs" dynamic between a prominent politician and a handful of criminals. The defence said Andreotti had been a long-time politician of national stature, never beholden to Lima; and that far from providing protection, Andreotti had passed many tough anti-mafia laws when in government during the '80s. According to Andreotti's lawyers, the prosecution case was based on conjecture and inference, without any concrete proof