Plan to Slay Saviano

by Fulvio Bufi

Informer say author will be attacked on Rome-Naples motorway before Christmas



NAPLES - A Camorra plan to kill Roberto Saviano before Christmas is now thought to be in its operational phase. The slaying is believed to have been decided unanimously by organised crime families belonging to the Casalesi cartel and is scheduled to take place soon. Gangsters want to kill the author of Gomorra before Christmas, if necessary with the carabinieri officers of his escort. The plan is to set up a spectacular attack on the Rome-Naples motorway during one of the writer's frequent transfers under escort. A report reached magistrates of the Naples anti-Mafia directorate after the revelations of Carmine Schiavone, the cousin of the gang boss also called Carmine Schiavone and nicknamed Sandokan, the acknowledged leader of the Casalesi and currently serving a life sentence.

The informer Schiavone first collaborated with magistrates in 1993, during the Spartacus trial of gangsters from the Caserta area, which ended in the appeal court last June. His testimony was taken at forty-nine hearings. Schiavone knew the gangsters' every secret while he was part of the operation but even today, when he is living under a new name in central Italy, he is believed to maintain contacts at Casal del Principe, the village after which the Casalesi gang is named and home of all the Schiavones. One of the informer's contacts is thought to have told him about the plan to eliminate Saviano. Schiavone informed a police officer, who made a report to the anti-Mafia directorate which in turn intensified measures to protect the author's safety. At the Naples public prosecutor's office, magistrates point out that hearsay evidence has to be cross-checked but admit that Saviano has been at severe risk for some time, noting that the new report only confirms the worries they themselves have expressed on several occasions.

Those worries are further intensified if Schiavone's revelations are collated with the statements made by Oreste Spagnuolo, one of the men who murdered six Africans on 18 September at Castelvolturno. After his arrest, Spagnuolo became a police informer. Spagnuolo has revealed, and continues to reveal, much about Giuseppe Setola, the boss of the Casalesi-affiliated gang believed to have carried out the Castelvolturno killings and many other murders in recent months. One conversation reported by the informer is particularly striking: "I remember that Setola mentioned that he was looking to procure explosives with a remote-control detonator. He didn't tell me what he wanted it for but he said it was an easy way to kill someone". Setola may have found the explosives he was looking for and what he didn't say to Spagnuolo may have been that he intended to use it for Saviano.

All this is compatible with the Casalesi cartel's campaign of murders. The killings began when Setola escaped from a hospital when under house arrest and took control of a group of gangsters, including Spagnuolo. Setola then began to settle some accounts with relatives of informers, traders who refused to pay protection money and immigrant communities in the province of Caserta. The wave of bloodshed featured spectacular attacks in the style of the Corleone clan's Mafia killings in the early 1990s. Obviously, a motorway bombing is a stark reminder of the fate of magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and police officers Vito Schifano, Rocco Di Cillo and Antonio Montinaro at Capaci on 23 May 1992. The Casalesi have always acted in a Mafia-like style that sets them apart from other Camorra gangs.

It is no coincidence that in Campania, only the Casalesi have planned the murder of a magistrate, Raffaele Cantone. Saviano went under police protection two years ago and yesterday he spoke about his experience on the Radiotre radio show, Fahrenheit. "They've been two very hard years", said Saviano, adding "at first, you don't think you're going to make it when your everyday routine is turned on its head. You realise things can only get worse because you are living in a constant state of suspicion, distrust and solitude as those around you disappear".
Saviano talked about recent police raids - "I'm worried that the recent arrests might make the gangsters even more desperate" - and about the very practical problems he has faced in his years under protection, such as not being able to find a flat in Naples because no block wanted a resident like him. He said he had discovered boxing, which he finds enjoyable and relaxing. "I use the gym a lot but always with my lads, as I call them, the carabinieri [who are often older than he is - Ed.] who are with me night and day, and who sometimes call me ‘captain'".