January 8 2010 15:52
The Italian government has stepped up its fight against the Calabrian Mafia by promising more magistrates and police officers for Reggio Calabria following a bomb attack aimed at the city’s attorney general.
Roberto Maroni, interior minister, and Angelino Alfano, justice minister, said that from next week, six more magistrates will be working in the judicial offices and 121 more policemen, carabinieri and finance officers will be sent in the area. Half of them will be involved in investigations and the remaining half will be patrolling the territory.
A military escort will be granted to magistrates considered to be the most exposed to attacks from the Mafia clans. Mr Maroni will also propose Reggio Calabria as headquarters of the planned national agency for confiscated goods.
The government convened an anti-Mafia summit in response to the explosion on Sunday, which targeted Salvatore di Landro, the local attorney general, and his staff and followed a year-long crackdown on the local Mafia, known as the ’Ndrangheta.
In 2009 the Reggio Calabria authorities arrested 49 Mafia members and confiscated assets with a value of over €800m ($1,200m, £700m).
“Such initiative can only be decided collectively by the heads of the local clans. It is a direct attack to the highest judicial authority of the district,” said Mr di Landro, nominated last November.
Tension is rising as important trials, such as the Spartacus trial involving the Casalesi family, are drawing to a close.
“If they wanted, they have enough explosives to blow up the whole of Reggio Calabria. [This time] they didn’t want to hit harshly, only send out a first signal, start a ‘military confrontation’ ”, said Roberto Saviano, author of the best-seller Gomorrah, in La Repubblica, the daily newspaper.
The interests of the clans go beyond Italian borders. “With their [cocaine] traffic alone they have a turnover that is 60 times that of Fiat,” said Mr Saviano.
“The Mafia is a pathological phenomenon that we want to defeat once and for all in the years left of our legislature,” said Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister, in a radio interview last week.
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