Bruno Contrada, a former police chief and the ex-number three at domestic intelligence service SISDE (now AISI), has died in Palermo at the age of 94.
The Naples native spent his career in Palermo, rising through the ranks of the police and going on to become a senior intelligence officer over a period of 30 years.
Accused of helping the Mafia, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which he finished serving in 2012.
In 2015, however, the European Court of Human Rights ruled the crime Contrada was convicted of, external involvement in mafia association, was not sufficiently clear at the time of the alleged wrongdoing, between 1979 and 1988, in violation of the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal law.
After a long legal battle, Contrada was awarded 285.342 euros in damages for unjust detention.
