Mafioso ‘hid blade in rectum in plan to kill prosecutor’

AN ITALIAN mafioso who f alsely claimed he wished to become an informer actually wanted to attack a prosecutor with a ceramic blade hidden in his rectum, police claimed.

Pancrazio Carrino, 42, allegedly developed a hatred of prosecutor Carmen Ruggiero after she led an operation, codenamed The Wolf, that dealt a crippling blow to a leading clan within the Sacra Corona Unita mafia, which is based in the region of Puglia. Ms Ruggiero’s investigations led to the arrest of 22 suspected mafiosi including Carrino.

Prosecutors accused him of being a member of the Lamendola-cantanna clan, one of the most powerful within Sacra Corona Unita, claiming he was involved in supplying drugs and carrying out “punitive expeditions” against rivals. He allegedly became bent on revenge and hatched what one Italian newspaper called “a diabolical plan”.

Two weeks after his arrest, on July 31 last year, he told the authorities that he was prepared to become a pentito, or informer, dishing the dirt on mafia clans in return for reduced time behind bars.

He said he wanted to talk to Ms Ruggiero, a senior prosecutor in the city of Lecce. He allegedly fashioned a blade from a piece of ceramic he took from the toilet in his cell and hid it in his rectum just before he went into a meeting with the prosecutor. During the interrogation, he went to the toilet, extracted the blade and hid it in his trousers.

“I was seated in front of the prosecutor. I was keeping my eye on a Carabinieri officer to check whether I was close enough to be able to cut the prosecutor’s throat without him blocking me,” he allegedly told investigators afterwards.

But the Carabinieri l i eutenant, Alberto Bruno, realised something was amiss. Confronting Carrino and frisking him, he found the makeshift blade.

“If I had been as clear-headed that day as I am now, Carmen Ruggiero would be history,” the mafioso, who is under investigation for attempted murder, is said to have told investigators.

Ms Ruggiero lives under police protection because of the threats she has received from the mafia, as does another prosecutor in the region, Maria Francesca Mariano.