Criminal prosecutors on Thursday
asked a Rome court to fine anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano
10,000 euros for calling Premier Giorgia Meloni a "bastard" on a
television talk show in December 2020.
Saviano, the author of the Gomorrah expose, made the comment
while talking about baby who died in a migrant crossing.
Meloni, the leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI),
has used strong rhetoric on the issue of migration.
Saviano said the same thing about League leader Matteo Salvini,
the current deputy premier and infrastructure minister.
Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation after Meloni, who at
the time was in the opposition, filed a complaint.
Salvini is a civil plaintiff in the trial.
The writer also faces a separate trial for having called Salvini
the "minister of the underworld" on another occasion.
Saviano has been in police protection since the publication of
Gomorra in 2006 lifted the lid on the Casalesi clan of
Campania's Camorra mafia.
The book was turned into a 2008 film that won second prize at
Cannes and was the inspiration for a successful Sky TV series.
The Camorra is Italy's third-biggest criminal organisation
behind Calabria's 'Ndrangheta and Sicily's Cosa Nostra.
Press freedom groups have criticized the trial and the fact that
defamation is a criminal offence in Italy.
When he called the two politicians "bastards", Saviano referred
to their previous statements criticizing NGO rescue ships as
"sea taxis" and "cruise ships".
"I think Giorgia Meloni's conduct is an act of intimidation,"
Saviano told the court.
"Amid the absurdity of being taken to trial by the premier for
having criticized her, there is no greater honour for a writer
than to see their words scare such a mendacious power.
"When it is asked, one day, how it was possible to let all these
people die at sea, my name will not be among the accomplices".
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