Anti-mafia prosecutors in the southern Calabria region have opened an investigation into an incident that occurred Wednesday in the town of Oppido Mamertina. The town is known for being home to several powerful criminal clans from the 'Ndrangheta mafia.
Two weeks after Pope Francis publicly excommunicated the Mafia, a procession carrying a statue of the Madonna stopped to pay homage outside the house of local 'Ndrangheta leader Peppe Mazzagatti in what Interior Minister Angelino Alfano called a "deplorable and repulsive" gesture. The 82-year-old is serving a life sentence under house arrest for health reasons.
Anti-mafia prosecutors were called in by the local chief of the Carabinieri military police, who abandoned the procession when he realized it had stopped at Mazzagatti's house. They will try to ascertain if the stop was scheduled or spontaneous, and who was responsible for the incident.