Italy may deploy troops to fight mafia

Rome, April 29 (IANS/AKI) Italian troops may be sent to help security forces fight mafia as part of the government’s war against organised crime, defence minister Ignazio La Russa said Thursday.

“When we deploy our soldiers, it’s not because they have a better attitude, greater efficiency or capability than our (paramilitary) Carabinieri force or our police,” La Russa told Italy’s Radio Anch’Io station.

The army was deployed during the 1990s after the murder of anti-mafia judges in Sicily in 1993.

The Berlusconi government also deployed the army to the southern city of Naples during its rubbish crisis in May 2008 soon after it took office.

During the 1990s, the Italian government deployed some 1,200 soldiers and Carabinieri to fight the mafia during the six-year Sicilian Vespers operation.

It was launched after the assassination of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in the Sicilian capital Palermo in 1993.

“We may repeat this operation, because when there’s an area of the country with intense criminal activity, we need to reinforce security forces there,” La Russa said.

Crime has fallen by 40 percent in troubled areas such as the northern city of Milan’s central station since the deployment of troops and the introduction of foot patrols in the ‘Safe Cities’ operation, he added.

–IANS/AKI