Saviano says 'proud' to be on trial for defaming Salvini

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 1 - Anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano said Wednesday he was "proud" to be going on trial on charges of defaming former interior minister and rightwing anti-migrant League leader Matteo Salvini for calling the current transport minister and deputy premier a "bastard" while discussing migrants on a TV show in December 20.
    Saviano, who is also on trial separately for calling rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader Giorgia Meloni, the current premier, the same thing on the same show, said "I'm proud to be a defendant because I can tell the court that party leaders and ministers cannot dodge the possibility of criticism." Saviano, author of the Camorra exposè Gomorra which earned him police protection from the Neapolitan Mob, said he is also being sued by Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano for calling him a "mediocre journalist and a biographer of Putin".
    Saviano said "these three ministers of the same government have decided to sue for damages a person who has dared to criticise them".
    Saviano also said that the mafia was exploiting the government's "wrong" decision to put anarchist leader Alfredo Cospito under the harsh 41 bis jail regime hitherto only reserved for Mob bosses to stop them running affairs from inside prisons.
    He said this had been shown by a leak of sensitive information by FdI MP Giovanni Donzelli who criticised centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) MPs for visiting Cospito to check on his ailing health on a hunger strike on the same day that a Camorra boss voiced support for the jailed anarchist, who has lost 45kg and is in precarious health due to his hunger strike.
    "The revelations made in court by Donzelli, if true, show that criminal organisations seek to take advantage and exploit a wrong choice made by the institutions, namely the 41 bis given to Alfredo Cospito," said Saviano, who has been in police protection since the publication of Gomorra in 2006 lifted the lid on the Casalesi clan of Campania's Camorra mafia, before being turned into a 2008 film that won second prize at Cannes and was the inspiration for a successful Sky TV series.
    "In this sense, what parliamentarian Giovanni Donzelli said, beyond the fact that he should not have said it, was useful, because it confirms that organised crime tries to manipulate a wrong choice to its own advantage"..
    Cospito's lawyer confirmed Wednesday that his client is fighting for 41 bis, which mandates almost complete isolation from the outside world, to be lifted for all inmates including Mafia dons.
    Saviano's defamation trial against Salvini was adjourned to June 1, when the League leader will be heard.
    Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who has vainly tried to resurrect Salvini's former policy of blocking NGO run migrant rescue ships, was also mentioned in the list of defence witnesses. (ANSA).