Pier Grasso spoke in San Luca in Calabria at the first national Anti-'Ndrangheta Day, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. The 'Ndrangheta is the Calabrian equivalent of Cosa Nostra in Sicily.

Six Italians were shot in Duisburg, Germany, last August, a mass killing believed to have been part of a cycle of revenge dating back to the early 1990s.

''The events in Duisburg have put San Luca at the center of the world as a negative symbol,'' Grasso said. ''I want a different message that promotes peace and the end of violence to go out from San Luca today.''

While hundreds of people, including students, local officials and residents of San Luca, attended the rally, relatives of the men accused of the Duisburg killing held a counter-protest. They demanded "real justice" while Grasso urged them to trust the legal system and persuade those suspects still on the run to give themselves up.