Bidognetti, one of the Campania Camorra mafia leaders whose death threats over Saviano’s 2006 exposé Gomorra forced the author into police protection, was reconvicted along with a lawyer for issuing new threats against Saviano, as well as fresh threats against fellow anti-mafia journalist Rosaria Capacchione.
Gomorra (Gomorrah in English) was adapted into a 2008 film that won second prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and later inspired an internationally successful TV series.
Bidognetti and other Casalesi bosses are already serving lengthy to life prison terms for murder and other mafia-related crimes. The crime family takes its name from its base in Casal di Principe, north of Naples.
Saviano, 45, broke down in tears and hugged his lawyer after the verdict. Speaking to reporters, he said, “They robbed me of my life.”
“Sixteen years of trial is no victory for anyone,” he continued. “But I have proof that the Camorra publicly declared in a courtroom that it is information that frightens them.
“Now we have official confirmation in this second trial that the bosses and their lawyers signed an appeal in which they targeted those who report on criminal power,” Saviano emphasised.
“And they didn’t attack politics, but journalism, insinuating that they would hold journalists - and my name and that of Rosaria Capacchione were explicitly mentioned - responsible for their convictions.
“This has never happened in a courtroom anywhere in the world.”
ANSA
