Historic jailed Camorra mafia boss Francesco Schiavone has turned state's witness, the daily newspaper 'Cronache di Caserta' reported on Friday.
Nicknamed 'Sandokan' after the fictional action hero, the undisputed leader of the Neapolitan Casalesi clan has reportedly decided to cooperate with Naples prosecutors after 26 years in jail under the tough 41-bis prison regime.
The decision has been confirmed by the National Anti-Mafia Directorate (DNA).
In recent days police have reportedly gone to the clan's base in Casal di Principe to invite Schiavone's relatives, including his son Ivahnoe, to enter the protection programme.
Two other sons, Nicola and Walter, decided to turn state's witness respectively in 2018 and 2021, while Emanuele Libero and Carmine remain in prison and Sandokan's wife Giuseppina Nappa is not in Casal di Principe.
The Casalesi's death threats pushed anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano into a police protection scheme following the publication of 'Gomorra', his best-selling exposé of the Camorra in 2006.
Arrested in 1998 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2008 in the Spartacus trial against the Casalesi clan, Schiavone could shed light on a number of unresolved mysteries including the 1988 murder of clan founder Antonio Bardellino in Brazil, and on the relationship between the Camorra mafia and politics.
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