THE CAMORRA, the Neapolitan Mafia, intends to assassinate best-selling author Roberto Saviano before the end of the year.
Rome daily La Repubblicayesterday reported that a senior camorrista, who has turned state's witness, recently informed his police contacts that the Camorra intends to kill Saviano because of the huge publicity generated by his book Gomorrah, an exposé of the Camorra's criminal empire.
Saviano has lived under 24-hour police protection for the last two years following the publication of his book, a gripping and hard-hitting account of the ferocious violence Camorra godfathers use to run a "business" empire that includes drug trafficking, public works building contracts, prostitution rings and the dumping of toxic waste on agricultural land.
The film version of Gomorrah, which has just been released in Ireland, won an award at the Cannes film festival last May and has been selected to represent Italy in the Foreign Language Film category at next year's Academy Awards in Los Angeles.
La Repubblicafeatures a police report which, in its understated and bureaucratic way, highlights the dangers facing Saviano.
It reads: "The aforementioned [ camorristaturned state's witness] informed our operative [policeman] that by the end of December the famous author of the book Gomorrah,namely Saviano Roberto, would be killed along with his bodyguard because through his book he had provoked too much fuss."
Saviano, clearly, was not available for comment yesterday but sources close to the writer suggested that the most recent revelations would make little difference to him.