Colombo was born on 23 June 1946 in
Briosco. He obtained a degree in Jurisprudence from the
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in
Milan in 1971. Colombo had a 33-year-long career as a magistrate in Milan. He worked amongst others on the cases of the 1979 murder of advocate
Giorgio Ambrosoli, the
Propaganda Due Freemason lodge, and off-the-books money at the
Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale. Together with
Giuliano Turone he investigated the finances of
Michele Sindona. In the 1990s Colombo was one of the judges in the
Mani pulite political corruption investigation in Italy. He resigned from the judiciary in 2007, even though he could have continued sitting as a judge for another fourteen years. As a reason for his resignation, he explained that he felt the fight against corruption should not take place solely in the legal arena. == Books ==