A MAFIA insider has told a US jury how he held a potential witness and another man while his brother strangled them with rope and cut their throats.

Nicholas Calabrese said he and his brother, Frank Calabrese Sr, gave codenames to the killings, referring to one as "Doo-be-doo" so they could discuss them secretly.

Paul Haggerty frantically gripped the roof of a car while Frank Calabrese and a huge man nicknamed "Goombah" punched him, dragged him into the back seat and drove him off to his death, Nicholas Calabrese testified quietly.

Michael Albergo was strangled at a construction site before Frank Calabrese cut his throat, his brother said.

"I wet my pants I was so scared," Nicholas Calabrese said.

He said they threw the body in a hole, covered it with lime and dirt and named the murder "Pit".

The testimony was in the Chicago trial of Frank Calabrese Sr, 69, James Marcello, 65, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 78, Paul Schiro, 70, and Anthony Doyle, 62.

They are charged with being in a racketeering conspiracy that included extortion, gambling, loan sharking and 18 long-unsolved murders, including those of Haggerty and Albergo.

All five have pleaded not guilty.

Albergo was a loan shark who threatened to co-operate with prosecutors.

Of the Albergo killing, Nicholas Calabrese said his brother "pulled out a knife and cut his throat".

Assistant US Attorney Mitchell Mars asked: "Do you know why your brother did that?"

"To make sure that he was dead," Nicholas Calabrese said.

The same thing happened after his brother used a rope to strangle Haggerty in a garage belonging to the mother-in-law of a mobster, he said.

While much of the testimony at the trial has focused on loan sharking, gambling and the extortion of "street tax" - similar to protection money - from businesses, the heart of the case involves long-unsolved mob killings.

The Albergo case was the first among the 18 listed.

Yesterday, Calabrese said mob boss Angelo LaPietra was so eager to have one man killed in 1983 that he was willing to have the man's companion - a stranger - gunned down as well.

"Wrong place, wrong time?" asked prosecutor Mitchell Mars.

"Yes," Calabrese said softly.

Nicholas Calabrese began helping prosecutors to avoid the gas chamber after police linked him to one of the 18 killings.

He has pleaded guilty to racketeering and faces a possible life sentence.

Frank Calabrese Sr's lawyer, Joseph Lopez, has said Nicholas Calabrese dislikes his brother and is lying about him.


By Mike Robinson in Chicago
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22102990-663,00.html