Italian PM weighs up military mission to Naples

The Prime Minister of Italy is considering sending the army to restore order to Naples, where a bloody crime spree has claimed seven lives since Friday. Romano Prodi was quoted by the Ansa news agency saying he was "making an assessment" of the long term benefits of deploying the military to quell a surge in violence believed to be related to rivalries within the Camorra, the Neapolitan branch of the Mafia. "This time the fight against crime will not be carried out to soothe public opinion for a few days or a few months, but it will be a permanent fight to bring safety to the citizens," he said.

Earlier, the Interior Minister, Giuliano Amato, said more than 1,000 police reinforcements would arrive in the southern city on November 9 to reinforce the local force of 13,000, which has been unable to rein in the recent violence. Signor Amato spoke after a 36-year old man was shot dead in a video games shop in Naples in what officials said appeared to be a Mafia-related murder. It was the fifth killing since Friday. Shortly after the announcement, two members of the Camorra were murdered in Torre del Greco, a small town near Naples in what police said was a settling of scores.

The possible deployment of the army comes after an appeal from the regional governor of Naples, Antonio Bassolino, who has asked for more security forces and "more sophisticated means" of fighting crime in the city. "We are sitting on a volcano," he told La Repubblica newspaper, which reported today that many of the extra 1,000 police were expected to protect tourist areas in the popular holiday destination, as well as help in the fight against the Camorra and rampant local crime.

The weekend's rush of killings has been a mixture of organised and casual crime. On Friday, a tobacconist killed an armed robber and seriously wounded an accomplice trying to steal his earnings. On Saturday a masked gunman killed Patrizia Marino, a 63-year-old Mafia drug dealer whose husband and two sons were recently murdered. Later that night a 16-year-old killed his girlfriend's former boyfriend. On Monday, a petty criminal was shot dead Naples’s old city, and a passer-by was injured.

Timesonline.co.uk
01-11-06