Mafia hitman turns State's witness for love

(ANSA) - Bari, June 17 - A hitman from Puglia's Sacra Corona Unita (SCU) mafia turned State's witness for the love of his wife and newborn daughter, anti-mafia prosecutors said Friday.
    Bari native Michele Miccoli, 36, made a 1,000-page statement in which he confessed to a number of hits and told of dozens more carried out by the Strisciuglio clan.
    He also detailed the clan's drug trafficking and extortion activities as well as its relationships with other organized crime rings in Bari.
    Miccoli has been in prison almost a decade for robbery and drug trafficking.
    His testimony is being used in the trial of 49 suspects including clan boss Domenico Strisciuglio and his brothers, Sigismondo and Vincenzo.
    The defendants face mafia association, drug trafficking, weapons and explosives, aggravated bodily harm, and extortion charges.
    The Strisciuglio brothers were arrested in July 2015 along with dozens of suspects.
    The sweep came after a three-year investigation that uncovered what prosecutors said is a heavily armed criminal organization affiliated with the Neapolitan Camorra mafia, with a network of affiliates both within and outside prison walls.
    The clan controlled the drug trade, met publicly in a piazza to exchange information and discuss strategy, extorted construction businesses, and infiltrated ultra' supporters of the Bari soccer team.