Italian President Giorgio Napolitano is going to testify in a trial in which prosecutors are seeking to shed light on mafia bombings two decades ago which killed leading magistrates, according to Reuters.
State officials are accused of holding secret talks with the mafia in the early 1990s, a Palermo judge said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
The court "decided that the testimony (of the president) is neither superfluous nor irrelevant," said Judge Alfredo Montalto, presiding over the case, according to Reuters.
Prosecutors have indicated they want to talk to the president about conversations one of the accused had with one of Napolitano's former advisers, Reuters reported.
The president will deliver his testimony in Rome, but the court did not give a date, according to Reuters.
Prosecutors allege that senior politicians and police officials held talks with the Sicilian Mafia after anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three bodyguards were assassinated by a mafia bomb planted under a road in 1992, Reuters reported.
At the time of the bombings Napolitano held a different post, president of Italy's Chamber of Deputies in the lower house of parliament, according to Reuters.
The 89-year-old, who resisted giving evidence when prosecutors made an initial request in October, issued a statement on Thursday saying he would have "no difficulty in giving his testimony very soon," Reuters reported.
Napolitano was linked to the case when prosecutors tapped Mancino's phone and recorded four calls he made to the president, according to Reuters.
