A businessman was arrested Tuesday
in connection with the murder of an anti-mafia blogger and
lawyer at Formia south of Rome last month.
The suspected killer, who was not named, allegedly murdered
Mario Piccolino on May 29 because he was defending a rival
plaintiff and not because of his anti-mafia activity, police
said.
Piccolino, 71, who was found in his office with a gunshot
wound to the head, was a local institution of sorts for his
website freevillage.it, which focused on crime in the
Pontine plain southwest of Rome whose capital is the
Mussolini-built city of Latina, where the murder suspect was
stopped.
The Neapolitan Camorra mafia has made big inroads into the
area in recent years, police say.
The killer made an appointment with Piccolino to gain
access, investigators said.
The activist lawyer in 2009 was savagely beaten with a
carjack in his office, and had been the recipient of numerous
"warnings" to desist from his investigative blogging.
These included chopped-off animal heads and fish entrails
being left on his doorstep, sources said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA