Neo-Fascist ex-chief laments House bar

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 16 - The former leader of the neo-Fascist Forza Nuova (New Force, FN) party Giuliano Castellino on Wednesday lamented being barred from the Lower House where he was slated to present his new political project.
    Castellino, 46, had been invited by Sud Chiama Nord (South Calls North) MP Francesco Gallo to hold a press conference in the House press room to present his new Italia Libera (Free Italy) project, but Gallo withdrew the invitation at the last minute after a row flared up.
    Castellino, curremntly on trial along with FN leader Roberto Fiore for an assault on the Rome HQ of leftwing union federation CGIL last year, protested to police and reporters after being halted at the police barriers outside the parliament building of Montecitorio.
    "This is not democracy," he complained.
    A Rome judge in July handed down the first six guilty verdicts in the assault on the headquarters of Italy's biggest and most leftwing union CGIL in Rome in October last year.
    The attack was led by members of far-right group Forza Nuova who hijacked a protest against the COVID-19 Green Pass health certificate to ransack the union offices.
    A preliminary hearings judge gave out sentences ranging from six years to four and a half years.
    The son of the girlfriend of FN's Rome chief Castellino, Fabio Corradetti, and the group's Palermo leader Massimiliano Ursino, both got six years.
    Castellino is also a defendant in the case, as is FN national leader Fiore (ANSA).