Saviano skeptical about 'Sandokan' spilling the beans

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 29 - Roberto Saviano said he was skeptical about Francesco 'Sandokan' Schiavone spilling the beans on political-business-mafia links and other mysteries after the historical Casalesi clan chief whose death threats put the Gomorrah writer into a protection scheme said he was turning state's evidence Friday.
    Saviano, whose 2006 Camorra expose' was turned into a film that won second prize at Cannes in 2008, said "the news of Schiavone's 'repentance' (turning state's evidence) has been overwhelming for me.
    "He knows half a century of history of the Camorra's power. His clan was among the very few to have had directly a representative in government, economy undersecretary Nicola Cosentino, who is serving time (10 years) for this.
    "But we have to see if he really wants to collaborate, because so far what his wife and children have said (to police) has not made a great difference.
    "The big fear is that he has found a moment of equilibrium, knowing well that there is not a great fight by the State against the criminal organizations.
    "I mean by that fighting in economic and business terms because Schiavone made the difference in organised crime history in so far as he was an entrepreneur as well as a killer.
    "Will he really work with the police? Or will he do like (another Camorra informant) Antonio Iovine who just told things we already knew? Or will he reveal new possibilities of knowledge about the Neapolitan Mob? "Will he help us find the money, where it is hidden, in what offshore tax havens? "Will he reveal the links with business and politics?" Saviano, whose work has also spawned other films and hit TV series, continued: "Schiavone is not anti-State, never make that mistake, he is part of the State. The Camorra is part of the State. There is a part of the State that is allied to them and a part that combats them. Then there's the wider and more varied majority, that keeps its distance from both.
    "In 26 years of tough jail regime silence ensured that he would continue to be king. Now certainly he is no longer the boss, and even if he doesn't tell us much he won't be the boss any longer, but he may have chosen to talk to get round his life sentence which stops you getting out even if you have served 30 years.
    "After 26 years in jail, either you turn state's evidence or you die in prison.
    "He had decided to die in prison, but something made him change his mind.
    "Perhaps the possibility of saving his family or a very fragile State that will only need telling some nonsense to in order to get a free life back? "Only time and great attention to these dynamics will tell us that." (ANSA).