Supreme court confirms Spada jail, mafia (4)

(ANSA) - Rome, February 8 - 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".