PALERMO, Italy, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Italy's interior minister said this week the country doesn't fear Mafia threats to prosecutors but warned a resumption of crime family "massacres" is possible.
Angelino Alfano, who also serves as Italian deputy prime minister and chairman of the country's Public Order and Security Committee, told committee members at a meeting in Sicily "the state has no fear" of the Mafia and is "on the side of the judges who are now threatened," the Italian daily La Stampa reported.
Alfano declared his determination to protect crime-fighting jurists and prosecutors in the wake of death threats issued by imprisoned former top crime boss Toto Riina against a number of justice officials, including Nino Di Matteo, the deputy prosecutor of Palermo.
However, the minister said it is possible Mafia bosses could return to a strategy of mass killings of officials prevalent in the 1990s.
"We cannot exclude that there is a temptation to resume a such a strategy, but we can say with certainty that the state and ready to react," he said.
Alfano came to Palermo, long considered the birthplace and main stronghold of the Italian Mafia, to express solidarity with magistrates targeted by intense Mafia intimidation, and with prosecutors investigating links between the state and the crime group.
Palermo was chosen to remain the headquarters of the Public Order and Security Committee to show "that the state is stronger than those who want to fight," he said.
The committee includes the chief of the national police, a Council of Ministers undersecretary with special responsibility for the intelligence services and the heads of Italy's other police forces.
"Every attack or challenge against the judges is an attack and a challenge to the country," Alfano said.
Riina, the former Mafia "boss of bosses," issued the threats from his prison cell last month during hearings into a reputed deal between the crime organization and the Italian government in the 1990s.
Media reports quoted a prison guard as saying Riina shouted Di Matteo "must die ... they're making me crazy" as he watched video of a trial in Palermo looking into the alleged secret negotiations, which prosecutors say were conducted to halt a wave of violence.
Riina also threatened several other officials, the report said.
Police considered moving Di Matteo and his family as a result of the threats, but decided instead to increase security around them.
Riina is in a maximum-security prison in Milan for a number of crimes, including the bombing assassinations of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992 and 1993.
In his comments Tuesday, Alfano revealed he had "decided to further reinforce the personal security of judges exposed to threats and put at their disposal all necessary resources."
That could include the use of the "bomb jammer," a device that counteracts the remote controls used in attacks.
Alfano declared the state is ready to use the jammers, but first needs to study the impact of the devices on human health, La Stampa reported.
There is a risk that they can cause damage over time to operators and to people who come in contact with them, so until those issues can be addressed, no financial commitments can be made, he said.
