Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso said Wednesday he will boycott veteran TV presenter Bruno Vespa's talk show Porta a Porta on RAI public broadcaster tonight.
"I don't care if Riina's hands once caressed his children - those same hands have the blood of the innocent on them," Grasso tweeted. Vespa said earlier a controversial interview with the son of jailed Mafia boss Totò Riina will screen as planned. "I confirm that it will be aired," Vespa told ANSA. A press screening of the recorded interview will be held this afternoon.
If an interview with the son of jailed Mafia boss of bosses Toto' Riina goes ahead Wednesday night on State broadcaster RAI's Raiuno channel flagship talk show Porta a Porta "we will have confirmation that Porta a Porta lends itself to being the salon of denial of the Mafia," the chair of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission, Rosy Bindi, said Wednesday. "I hope there is a rethink by RAI," she said, saying that she will ask her committee's office to call the president and director-general of RAI to the commission if the interview goes ahead. Last summer Porta a Porta sparked a storm of criticism by interviewing members of the Rome mafia Casamonica clan during a row over the lavish Godfather-style funeral of boss Vittorio Casamonica, and allegedly treating them sympathetically.
Also on Wednesday, former Democratic Party (PD) leader Pier Luigi Bersani said he will pull out of an interview on Rai Uno's flagship Porta a Porta talk show tonight if a later scheduled interview with the son of jailed Mafia boss Toto' Riina on the same show is not scrubbed. Bersani, now the leader of tone of the PD's three minority factions, was scheduled to be interviewed in the first part of the show, and Riina Jr in the second. The interview with the son of the bloodthirsty former boss of bosses has spurred criticism of veteran host Bruno Vespa, who is currently insisting the Riina interview will go ahead.
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