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Italy to deploy army to tackle Mafia
Italy is to deploy the army to tackle the Mafia in its crime-ridden south following months of threats and intimidation against prosecutors and police.
By Nick Squires in Rome
Published: 5:08PM BST 06 Oct 2010
This will be the first time the army have been deployed against a mafia organisation for two years Photo: EPA
Soldiers will be sent to the southern region of Calabria "within days" to confront the powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia, authorities said, the first time the army have been deployed against a mafia organisation for two years. The request for the military was made a day after a bazooka was discovered near a courthouse in the city of Reggio Calabria, in what police said was a death threat by the 'Ndrangheta, thought to have become more powerful than the Sicilian mafia, against a senior prosecutor.
"The army will not take over control of the territory and there will not be soldiers in the streets. They will deal with security for the judiciary," said Luigi Varratta, the prefect for the local region. In 2008, 500 soldiers from Italy's elite parachute regiment were sent to the neighbouring region of Campania to patrol the streets and man road blocks after the local Camorra mafia gunned down six African immigrant workers in a suspected turf war over drug dealing.
In the 1990s, soldiers were sent to Sicily in order to enable local police to concentrate more on targeting the island's Cosa Nostra mafia. It operates not just in Italy but as far afield as Australia, the US, Canada, Spain and Switzerland. It has made a string of threats against anti-mafia investigators in recent months in retaliation for police raids in which hundreds of suspects have been arrested and millions of pounds’ worth of assets seized. In January, a bomb damaged the entrance to the courthouse in Reggio Calabria, and bullets have been posted to several anti-Mafia prosecutors.
