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Italian News: Gomorra boss son arrested
Posted by:giorgio 47 days ago • Discuss
Naples, November 20 - Naples Anti-Mafia police on Friday arrested the son of one of the historic leaders of the Camorra clan denounced in Roberto Saviano's worldwide bestseller Gomorra. Gianluca Bidognetti, 20, was arrested for the attempted murder at the end of May of the sister and niece of a clan woman who had started helping police. Dressed as anti-Mafia police, Bidognetti and others including the reputed head of the clan's murder squad, Giuseppe Setola, persuaded the informant's two relatives to come out into the street but only succeeded in wounding the daughter. Bidognetti is the son of Francesco Bidognetti alias 'Cicciotte e Mezzanotte' Midnight Fatty, one of the jailed heads of the Casalesi clan who take their name from the town of Casal di Principe near Caserta. After arresting the younger Bidognetti, police said they had issued a new arrest warrant for Setola, whose hit squad is believed to have murdered some 20 people since May. ''Setola is without doubt the brains behind the Casalesi campaign,'' Naples anti-Mafia Franco Roberti told ANSA. ''We are working to flush him out. The circle is closing around him''. Last week prosecutors said they had opened a probe into how Setola got out of jail last spring on the strength of a doctor's certificate that said he was virtually blind. Setola was released to house arrest but immediately went underground and has since been accused of leading the killer squad. Two members of Setola's squad were recently arrested and told police he drove a motorbike during some of the hits. Last month police arrested a Carabinieri officer suspected of tipping off Setola about police operations. The suspected 'mole' commanded a Carabinieri station near Casal di Principe. After a massacre of six West Africans near Caserta in September - another operation believed to have been led by Setola - the Italian government sent in the army to bolster efforts against the Casalesi. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the clan had ''declared war on the Italian state''. Hundreds of police and troops are stopping the Casalesi from going about their business, the Anti-Mafia Directorate DNA in Naples says. ''They feel hunted and are having trouble on the ground,'' the DNA says. Meanwhile, more and more important mobsters are turning state's evidence. Oreste Spagnuolo, one of Setola's killing squad, inflicted a major blow on the clan when he decided to help the police in mid-October. The DNA is confident of turning more Camorristi. Saviano, whose book lifted the lid on the Casalesi's criminal empire, said recently he would have to leave Italy to escape the Casalesi death threats. The writer has received messages of support from police, politicians, opinion leaders, six Nobel prize winners and thousands of ordinary Italians. The Casalesi have also threatened to kill Naples journalist Rosaria Capacchione who like Saviano is under round-the-clock police protection. The Casalesi clan is the main subject of Roberto Saviano's book Gomorra Gomorrah, which has been turned into a film bidding for the foreign film Oscar. photo: police and army at check-point near Casal di Principe
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