Italy braces for biggest mafia trial in decades
Hundreds of alleged members of Italy's most powerful mafia group are place to face justice in the country's biggest organized crime trial in years.
The 355 suspected mobsters and corrupt officials were charged carrying out a long inquiry in to the 'Ndrangheta group.
A lot more than 900 witnesses are anticipated to provide evidence, and the fee sheet includes murder, drug trafficking, extortion and cash laundering.
The trial commences on Wednesday and is expected to last more than 2 yrs.
It will take place in a specifically modified building found in the southern place of Calabria, which reaches the heart of 'Ndrangheta territory.
The building, formerly a call center in the town of in Lamezia Terme, has been converted into a fortified courtroom to make space for the hundreds of men and women likely to attend the proceedings. No mafia trial possesses been kept in Italy on such a level since the 1980s.
Unlike the earlier trial, which ran from 1986 to 1992 and targeted a large number of Cosa Nostra families in Sicily, Wednesday's trial is targeted at just one single group, the Mancuso family, which forms a powerful portion of the sprawling 'Ndrangheta mafia.
Although the 'Ndrangheta are now bigger than Cosa Nostra, the Mancuso clan are thought to operate typically in the Calabrian province of Vibo Valentia.
During a new pre-trial hearing it got more than three hours to read the names of the defendants, AFP media agency reports. They contain politicians, cops, civil servants and also alleged people and accomplices of the mob.
The highest-profile defendant may be the alleged clan boss Luigi Mancuso, 66, often known as "The Uncle". Different defendants are said to get by nicknames such as for example "The Wolf", "Fatty" and "Blondie".
The quantity of accused increases to a lot more than 400 when the 92 suspects who opt for separate fast-tracked trial are considered. Included in these are Giancarlo Pittelli, a legal professional and former senator for ex-Primary Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia get together.
Mr Pittelli denies connecting the 'Ndrangheta to the environment of politics and various other powerful institutions including the courts.
A lot of the defendants were detained in pre-dawn raids in Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Bulgaria in December 2019.
The 'Ndrangheta are thought to control the supply of huge amounts of cocaine entering European countries from South America and elsewhere.
But the lengthy demand sheet for the a huge selection of defendants goes far beyond drug crimes. It offers mafia association, murder, attempted murder, extortion, mortgage loan sharking, disclosure of established secrets and misuse of office.
"This trial displays how deeply rooted the 'Ndrangheta is in society," Federico Varese, professor of criminology at Oxford University, told AFP. "It's shocking which you have a criminal group so rooted in the territory you should put hundreds of folks on trial."
Central to the circumstance is Italy's most well-known anti-mafia prosecutor, 62-year-previous Nicola Gratteri, who has lived in police protection for more than three decades.
He has vowed to remove "this asphyxiating 'Ndrangheta, which truly needs the breath and the heartbeat from the people".
But Prof Varese has warned that the trial won't mark the finish of the group. "You can toss them in jail but unless you get rid of the root factors behind why they exist, they'll only reproduce," he said.
