by Salvo Palazzolo
Source: Repubblica
PALERMO — The rising star of the Melonian right in Calabria, Giuseppe Neri, and the mediator of the Araniti clan, Daniel Barillà, shared not only electoral strategies, but also hatred for journalists.
For one in particular, Alessia Candito, from Repubblica, who for years has been reporting on the infiltration of the ‘Ndrangheta within the institutions.
This is what the latest investigation by the ROS carabinieri and the Reggio Calabria prosecutor’s office reveals, which sees Giuseppe Neri, now president of the Fratelli d’Italia council group in the Region, under investigation for mafia-political electoral exchange: the prosecutor’s magistrates wanted to arrest him, the investigating judge deemed that there were not all the sufficient elements, the prosecutors will insist before the review court.
Four years ago, Neri had not liked some articles by Alessia Candito on his dubious associations, as they emerged from another mafia investigation. “The problem is that politics is made by journalists”, the former PD member who joined the Brothers of Italy was angry. Daniel Barillà, the son-in-law of the boss Domenico Araniti, further criticized the articles: «On the world of Facebook, the one where everyone writes, your image is destroyed». And again: «The problem is these journalists, who are four retards».
Those articles already revealed Neri’s relationships with members of the Araniti clan. And the politician feared for his rise. The words he uttered, not suspecting he was being intercepted by the police, were full of insults against the Repubblica reporter: «Then I break in – he continued – I can even see Candito on the street and spit in her face, understand? Let’s avoid it.”
That time, it was the bosses’ mediator who invited less sensational gestures, to avoid further uproar. “What the fuck are you talking about,” Barillà blurted out, “but then you’re a gentleman compared to them, what does that mean?”. The ‘Ndrangheta and its accomplices are in favor of the strategy of submersion. But at the time Neri was furious and even hypothesized a conspiracy against him: «The Prosecutor’s Office, everyone, stopped me because I had become the leader of the center-right in Reggio Calabria». In those days, he feared losing shares in his new party: «They have known me now… There have been people there for twenty years, it’s not like they think like that, Daniel, these are fascists. Now they are gaining confidence that I accepted all things from them, Morrone’s vice-presidency, the group leader… they called me and told me “it’s fine”, but always a bit like that.”
In the end, however, he placed all the blame on the journalists: “They’re all fucking communists, Musolino, Candito, that other guy LaC, all fucking communists,” Neri insisted. And now, these wiretaps are in the prosecutor’s indictment against him.
But who is really the new ras of the right in Calabria? He comes from Reggio well, he is a great frequenter of salons and clubs, he is above all a grandson of art: his grandfather was the eternal DC senator Sebastiano Vincelli, continuously in Parliament from 1958 to 1983. Neri’s career began as pasdaran of the Party Democrat, in the left-wing current “Democrats and Progressives”. Then, suddenly, the lightning strike on the right, with the rapid transition to FdI. When his great competitor, Domenico Creazzo, was arrested in February 2023 and acquitted in the first instance, Neri began with a party leader: “he ruined himself”. But then he starts to put his hands forward. “Something can happen to anyone, including me.” The wiretaps surprised the son of a boss, Ciccillo Gattuso, as he told him: “For our part, what can be done is done, to the maximum.” And he specified: «But we don’t make an audience… we stay a little behind the scenes». It is the new electoral campaign of the bosses, very confidential. This is why journalists like Alessia Candito are annoying. Because they revealed the secret pacts between the new right in power and the mafias.
