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Writer Marked by Mob to Flee Italy

Mob wants author dead by Christmas

By Peter Fearon,  Newser Staff

Posted Oct 16, 2008 4:25 AM CDT

(Newser) – A best-selling author who has become a target of Italian mobsters is fleeing Italy, reports the Guardian. Writer Roberto Saviano, 28, has spent the last two years as a virtual prisoner in army barracks, surrounded by bodyguards protecting him from a Neapolitan mob family. Saviano's book, Gomorra, now an acclaimed movie and Italy's candidate for an Oscar, exposed the Camorra, the Naples mob.

Mobsters have marked Saviano for assassination by Christmas. "I want a life. I want a home. I want to fall in love. I want to drink a beer in public, go to a bookshop and choose a book," Saviano told La Repubblica. "I want to see my mother without fear—without frightening her."

Roberto Saviano, a writer and expert on the Neapolitan organized crime syndicate, the Camorra, has been under police protection since 2006.
Roberto Saviano, a writer and expert on the Neapolitan organized crime syndicate, the Camorra, has been under police protection since 2006.   (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
Italian paratroopers and police secure a checkpoint in the crime-ridden, mob-plagued town whose crime families are exposed in Roberto Saviano's book 'Gomorra.'
Italian paratroopers and police secure a checkpoint in the crime-ridden, mob-plagued town whose crime families are exposed in Roberto Saviano's book 'Gomorra.'   (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
Roberto Saviano, a writer and expert on the Neapolitan organized crime syndicate, the Camorra, has been under police protection since 2006. He now plans to leave Italy.
Roberto Saviano, a writer and expert on the Neapolitan organized crime syndicate, the Camorra, has been under police protection since 2006. He now plans to leave Italy.   (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
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