ROME- Former Sicily health councillor Lucia Borsellino, who was said to have received death threats, has been granted police protection by the Italian Interior Ministry government sources said. She is to be escorted in a bulletproof vehicle, accompanied by at least two police agents.

 The decision came following a series of hearings by Borsellino to prosecutors Leonardo Agueci and Luca Battinieri regarding the inquests into head plastic surgeon Matteo Tutino, accused of fraud and embezzlement at the Palermo Villa Sofia hospital. In a wiretap acquired by weekly magazine L’Espresso in July, the doctor apparently said that Borsellino “must be stopped, done away with like her father,” referring to Paolo Borsellino, an anti-mafia prosecutor who was killed by a car bomb planted by Mafia group Cosa Nostra in 1992.

 The wiretap has been denied by various members of the Sicily regional government, including the President Rosario Crocetta, who was also in the tapped conversation. Before the wiretap scandal, Borsellino sent Crocetta a resignation letter, writing that “there have been many incidents which have lessened the credibility of the health institution that I was to represent.” In the letter, she made explicit reference to these incidents, citing the Tutino case and that of Nicole, a new-born who died in February, sparking controversy in the media regarding the efficiency of the healthcare system.

 Her brother Manfredi Borsellino also voiced in on Lucia’s stepping down in July: “My sister continued be health councillor in June to uphold justice, to be able to help investigators in weeding out mafia involvement in the health industry, and for her father. For over a year, she was aware of the hostility that was targeted at her.” In response Rosario Crocetta defended himself, saying that he had never isolated Lucia and that her suffering had also been his.