Three weeks before Italy's national election, gunmen killed Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti's party boss in Sicily today.
The dead Christian Democratic official, Salvo Lima, 64 years old, was regarded as Mr. Andreotti's main vote-raiser in Sicily.
No group came forward to take responsibility for the killing, but Christian Democratic officials and politicians from other parties depicted the killing in a suburb of Palermo as a show of Mafia force before elections billed as a watershed in Italian politics.
The Mafia was "evidently determined to fight all attempts by the state to respond efficiently to the country's need for security and legality," said Giacinto De Marco, a leading magistrate. Gunmen on Motorcycle
Police officials said two men on a motorcycle had opened fire on a car carrying the politican and two aides near his home in a suburb of Palermo. As the wounded man tried to escape, one of his assailants shot him dead through the head. There was no immediate word of arrests.
Mr. Lima served twice as Mayor of Palermo and became a member of the Italian Parliament in 1965. He had been a member of the European Parliament in Strasbourg since 1979.
The killing was thought to be the first Mafia slaying of a Sicilian politician since another former Mayor of Palermo, Giuseppe Insalaco, was shot dead four years ago.
The election on April 5 is being described by some political commentators as crucial in deciding whether Italian politics changes course after more than four decades of pork-barrel maneuvering in which every major political party, including the Christian Democrats, has been accused of having ties to organized crime.
New electoral laws approved in a referendum last year are in part supposed to prevent crime gangs, especially the Mafia, from installing pliant legislators. The Christian Democrats, like other parties, have promised a war on organized crime.
Mr. Lima himself had been accused by political adversaries of having Mafia connections. Several judicial inquiries found no trace of ties between Mr. Lima and the Mafia. But in a parliamentary report on the Mafia's political connections three years ago, his name came up 162 times.
