Italy's parliamentary anti-mafia committee was split in a vote Tuesday that saw the election of a new chair who is reportedly close to a former far-right militant who is serving 30 years for the 1980 Bologna bombing that killed 85 people, among other crimes.
Chiara Colosimo, a member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, is reportedly close to Luigi Ciavardini, a former member of the rightist militant NAR group sentenced to 30 years for the Bologna massacre, to a further 13 for murdering policeman Francesco Evangelista, and a further10 for killing judge Mario Amato, during Italy's Years of Lead rightist and leftist terror from the late 60s to the mid 80s.
In the vote Tuesday, FdI and its government partners, Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini's rightwing League party and three-time ex-premier and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, voted in favour of naming Colosimo the new anti-mafia commission chair.
The centre-left Democratic Party (PD), its green and leftwing allies AVS, and the left-leaning populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) voted against her, or boycotted the vote, citing her alleged links to Ciavardini.
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