Official: Man Shot 6 Immigrants Out of 'Racial Hatred'

Apparently random shooting spree targets African immigrants in Italy
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 3, 2018 5:13 PM CST
Police: Extreme-Right Gunman Shoots 6 Africans in Italy
A man identified by the Italian Carabinieri as Luca Traini. He is accused of having shot at several people in Macerata, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018.   (ANSA via AP)

An Italian gunman with extreme right-wing sympathies shot and wounded six African immigrants Saturday in Italy during a two-hour drive-by shooting spree, the AP reports. Police photos showed the shooting suspect with a neo-Nazi tattoo prominently on his forehead as he sat in custody and an Italian flag tied around his neck as he was arrested in the central Italian city of Macerata,. Authorities identified him as Luca Traini, 28. Traini had run for town council on the anti-migrant Northern League's list in a local election last year in Corridonia, the party confirmed, but its mayoral candidate lost the race. The news agency ANSA quoted friends of his as saying that Traini had previously been affiliated with Italian extremist parties like the neo-fascist Forza Nuova and CasaPound.

The shooting spree came days after the arrest of a Nigerian man in connection with the slaying of 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro and amid a heated electoral campaign in Italy where anti-foreigner sentiment has become a key theme. Interior Minister Marco Minniti said the gunman had been motivated "by racial hatred" and had "a background of right-wing extremism with clear references to fascism and Nazism." Authorities said the six wounded—five men and one woman—appeared to be random targets in various parts of the city of 43,000. Italian news reports indicated that the gunman's trajectory included the area where the Italian murder victim was found and where the suspect in her slaying lived. One victim remained hospitalized in intensive care.

(More racism stories.)

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