Thousands of convicts at large in Naples

(ANSA) - Milan, May 7 - Thousands of convicted criminals are at large in Naples, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Tuesday after Friday's shooting of a criminal in which a four-year-old girl was seriously injured.
    "Not hundreds but several thousand convicted criminals are wandering around Naples today, not in jail but gadding about," he said while inaugurating a new HQ for the national agency for seized criminal assets.
    "It's not an accusation but a problem we have to solve," said the interior minister and deputy premier, leader of the anti-migrant and Euroskeptic League party.
    "After repression you must guarantee the custody of those who have been caught," said Salvini, who is leading a crackdown on crime.
    A video published on Monday showed a man in Naples firing towards a crowd and then climbing twice over the body of the four-year-old girl lying on the pavement who was seriously wounded by one of his shots.
    The video - published by the website Sìcomunicazione and then by local online daily Mattino - showed footage of the man firing a weapon into a crowd in Naples' Piazzale Nazionale in an attempt to kill his intended target in a suspected mafia hit last week.
    The shooting has caused widespread shock and a protest took place against the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, on Sunday. The young innocent collateral victim of the Naples mob hit, Noemi, remains in critical condition at the local Santobono Hospital after surgeons removed a bullet that perforated her lungs.
    The injury was a "war wound", a doctor said Monday. The bullet passed through Noemi's lungs before lodging in her ribs. "It was a war wound," said Santobono Hospital paediatric surgery chief Giovanni Gaglione. Gaglione operated on Noemi on the night of Friday-Saturday, extracting a calibre 9 bullet of the 'full metal jacket' type. A full metal jacket is small-arms projectile consisting of a soft core (often lead) encased in a shell of harder metal, such as gilding metal, cupronickel, or, less commonly, a steel alloy.
    Also critical is the 31-year-old criminal, the target of the hit, who was hit six times. Noemi's grandmother, 50, took a bullet to the buttock.
    Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Monday said that he was hopeful the gunman will be brought to justice.
    "I hope they arrest that criminal who shot at a four-year-old girl," Salvini said. "Let's hope that she wins her fight (for her life).
    "There is no present or future for the mafia. The State is there where there is the stench of mafia or Camorra". But Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said the attack shows that, for all his tough talk, Salvini is not delivering results on the law-and-order front.
    "Salvini has made the country more insecure and more violent," de Magistris said.