ROME (Reuters) -Italian anti-Mafia author Roberto Saviano wept in court on Monday as judges upheld a conviction against a notorious mob boss who was found to have threatened him.
Francesco Bidognetti, a former leader of the Neapolitan Camorra mafia who was already serving life for a slew of other serious crimes, was sentenced to 18 months for intimidation.
The Rome court of appeals confirmed a 2021 ruling by a lower court, as it also upheld a 14-month sentence for Bidognetti’s former lawyer, Michele Santonastaso, for the same crime.
After the verdict, Saviano, 45, sobbed profusely as he hugged his lawyer. He told reporters that Camorra mobsters had “stolen his life”, forcing him to live under 24-hour protection.
The convictions are related to a message Santonastaso read out in court in 2008, during another trial, on behalf of Bidognetti and another Camorra boss.
The message contained an “invitation” to Saviano and another journalist to “do (their) job properly”, interpreted as a not-so-subtle hint to stop writing about the Neapolitan mafia.
Saviano has lived under police escort since 2006, when he published “Gomorrah”, an expose on the Camorra that has also been made into a film and a TV series.
The book’s huge success turned Saviano into a public figure but also into an enemy for Bidognetti’s ruthless Camorra clan, the Casalesi.
(Reporting by Paolo Chiriatti, writing by Alvise ArmelliniEditing by Keith Weir)
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