The first hearing of a criminal trial
in which anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano is accused of
defaming Premier Giorgia Meloni took place in Rome on Tuesday.
Saviano, the author of the Gomorrah expose, called the leader of
the right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party a "bastard" when
talking about the issue of migrants on a TV show in December
2020.
He 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.
At the end of the hearing Saviano said Salvini has presented a
request to be 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.
"I think I hold the record for being the journalist and
personality who has been most put on trial by this government,"
he said.
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 criticised the trial and the fact that
defamation is a criminal offence in Italy.
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