Il processo Andreotti : Il confine labile fra la partecipazione e il concorso esterno nei reati associativi

By examining an exceptional criminal proceeding in this paper we propose to conduct a study on criminal law ‘in action’ in order to verify the mechanisms of application of two associative offenses (‘simple’ criminal conspiracy and mafia-type criminal conspiracy). As a matter of fact the analysis reconstructs the intense trial about Giulio Andreotti’s working with Cosa Nostra – Andreotti, starting from March 4 1993, is accused of being at first an external competitor and subsequently a participant of Cosa Nostra in connection with a qualitatively complex accusatory apparatus. As a result of this analysis we come to ascertain how fleeting the boundary between the role of participant and external competitor in a criminal conspiracy can be, especially in case of political working with mafia-type criminal conspiracy (here Cosa Nostra).