19. 11. 09. - 16:00

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19. 11. 09. - 16:00

Police says they have arrested CCTV Mafia killer

Policemen in southern Italy say they have caught the hitman who cold bloodedly gunned down a Mafia boss in broad daylight outside a bar.

CCTV footge released by local police show how Mario Bacio Terracino, 53, was first felled by a gunshot to the arm.

His attacker then stood over him and finished him off with a single shot to the back of the head before strolling away.

Police in Naples, where the local Mafia are known as the Camorra, now say they have arrested the hitman that they named as Costanzo Apice, 27, after he was spotted in Castel Volturno, on the outskirts of Naples.

He has been taken to a jail in Poggioreale.

At the time police said the killing of Terracino, was part of a feud with a rival gang over the control of a lucrative drug trafficking network.

Terracino was also known to police as a bank robber and was accused of a £1.8 million heist committed in 1991, but was never convicted. His trademark was said to be entering buildings from below through the sewer network.

Police in Naples also revealed that Terracino had also been part of a Camorra gang that had kidnapped Italian Socialist politician Guido De Martino in 1977. He was snatched of a street in Naples and held for six weeks before being freed after a one billion lire ransom was paid - £430.000.

In the video Tarracino is seen smoking a cigarette outside a bar in the central Sanita neighborhood. The killer enters the bar, where there are at least six people, then emerges and shoots Tarracino at point blank range.

None of the bystanders moves a finger, although it is hard to say if that is from genuine indifference or fear of retaliation.

A woman is seen rubbing off her scratch-and-win lottery card as Tarracino is killed in front of her. A cigarette-seller moves his stall a few meters down the road, while a man holding a toddler in his arms looks at the victim and walks away.

A woman counting change in her purse jumps in shock at the sound of the gunshot and turns to see the killer calmly walking away. He was even said to be smiling.

So far this year, there have been more than 30 Camorra murders in Naples, many of which remain unsolved and many of them stem from feuds between rival clans.

In an attempt to control the extent of organised crime in the city the Italian government has flooded the area with troops, but with little effect.

One of the bloodiest hits was last September, when six Africans who tried to muscle into the drugs trade were shot dead outside a shop.

The Camorra is much more violent than the Sicilian Mafia and also has several branches in Britain. In 2006, Naples mobster Raffaele Caldarelli was arrested in Hackney, east London.

Austrian Times

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