Alleged Mafia Don Hires Image Consultant

He served time for laundering the proceeds of an international heroin-trading ring. Now he's on trial in Palermo, charged with belonging to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.

It is perhaps not surprising that 57-year-old Vito Palazzolo wants a change of image. But his decision to employ a public relations adviser breaks new ground: it is the first known instance of an alleged mafia godfather hiring a professional image consultant.

Aldo Sarullo is to Sicily what Sir Tim Bell is to Britain. He is a former actor, playwright and director, who advised Palermo's anti-mafia mayor, Leoluca Orlando, and then Silvio Berlusconi's party Forza Italia, which made a clean sweep of the island in the 2001 election.

In a recent letter to the Palermo prosecutors who secured Mr Palazzolo's indictment, Mr Sarullo announced he would soon be representing the man they were trying to put behind bars. He told the Guardian yesterday that he had not formally completed the deal.

"But unless something happens that I cannot foresee, I shall be taking the job," he said.

"My job will be to see that Mr Palazzolo is known for what he is," he said. "Right now, I am studying the process by which he came to be considered as a leading mafioso."

A flick through any news database will be instructive. In 1985, a court in Switzerland sentenced Mr Palazzolo to five-and-a-half years in jail for laundering $28m (£15.5m) from the "pizza connection", which supplied heroin through a chain of US pizza restaurants.

After escaping from prison, he fled to South Africa, was extradited back to Switzerland and returned to South Africa after serving his sentence.

In 1989, a National party MP resigned after reports that he had taken a bribe to ease Mr Palazzolo's entry.

Granted South African citizenship in 1995, the alleged mafia don changed his name to Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko. Since returning to South Africa his name has repeatedly cropped up in money-and-power scandals, the latest involving a donation to the ruling party by a property developer.

Asked who he would like as his next client, Mr Sarullo named Tony Blair.

"Now there's a man who's really in trouble," he said.