The supreme Court of Cassation on
Thursday confirmed the detention and a mafia charge against
Ostia clan member Roberto Spada for attacking RAI journalist
Daniele Piervicenzi and cameraman Edoardo Anselmi in the Roman
seaside municipality in November.
Spada, a top member of the eponymous clan, will remain in his
cell in the maximum-security prison at Tolmezzo near Udine,
charged with grievous bodily harm aggravated by mafia methods
for the November 7 attack, in which he broke Piervicenzi's nose
with a head butt.
Spada attacked the reporter for RAI's Nemo programme while he
was being interviewed on the Spadas' alleged links to the
neo-Fascist CasaPound group, which had scored a surprisingly
high 9% in the Ostia municipal elections.
On January 23 police and Carabinieri officers arrested 32
people in Ostia including the alleged chief of the Spada mafia
clan.
The suspects face charges of mafia criminal association.
Police said Roberto and his brother Carmine, the clan boss,
ordered the murders of rival bosses Giovanni Galleoni and
Francesco Antonini, which were carried out in 2011.
These murders "marked the definitive rise of the Spada clan",
police said.
The preliminary-investigations judge who signed the arrest
warrants, Simonetta D'Alessandro, said a decade-long probe
"highlighted the deep penetration of organized crime in the
economic activities of the coast".
The mafia association attributed to the Spadas "has caused a
significant degradation of the territory, enabling the
proliferation of very serious crimes", she wrote in the arrest
orders.
The Spadas, who are of Roma origin, have been investigated on
charges including drug trafficking, loan-sharking, gambling,
social housing scams, and for clashing with a rival clan over
control of the Ostia area.
In one wiretap, a victim of extortion described how Carmine
aka Romoletto Spada came to his restaurant with a flame-thrower
saying "this isn't threatening you, it's going to kill you".
Another victim said "these people aren't going to stop at
anything, and if Romolo (Carmine) doesn't get the money he'll
kill us all".
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