Top Camorra mobster turns State witness

(ANSA) - Naples, May 22 - A top Camorra mobster, Antonio Iovine, has started to collaborate with anti-mafia prosecutors in the southern Campania region, Italian media reported Thursday.
    Iovine, also known as 'o ninno', is considered one of the four former bosses of the powerful Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta, whose death threats have forced anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano into 24-hour police protection.
    The others are Francesco Bidognetti, Francesco Schiavone (aka Sandokan) and Michele Zagaria.
    Iovine, 50, is currently serving a life sentence for multiple murder and other crimes after being captured in autumn 2010 following 15 years on the run.
    He was handed the definitive sentence in January 2010 following the 12-year so-called Spartacus maxi trial against the Casalesi clan, in which Bidognetti, Schiavone and Zagaria were also sentenced to life imprisonment.
    "When last December I wrote that Antonio Iovine was considering turning State witness, I was called a visionary," wrote Saviano Thursday in a tweet.
    "It has happened," he continued.
    Naples Mayor and former magistrate Luigi de Magistris also hailed the development Thursday.
    "It is positive that breaches are being made in Camorra clans and that there is collaboration with the judiciary," De Magistris said.
    "The most damaging blows to mafia organisations have been made also thanks to the collaboration ofSstate witnesses," he said.
    Close relatives of Iovine, including his wife Enrichetta and his son Oreste, have been transferred to a secret location outside the province of Caserta for protection.