Sawt Falasteen - Inter and AC Milan ultras stand trial over organised crime offences

A bunker courtroom next to the imposing San Vittore prison in central Milan will host a fast-track trial for 16 of the 19 people arrested last year for serious crimes including criminal conspiracy aggravated by mafia methods, a charge usually reserved for the country's most powerful criminal organisations.

The alleged crimes involve activities around the iconic San Siro stadium on matchdays, from ticket touting to control of parking, sales from concession stands and taking payment from people without tickets and letting them into the stadium.

Among those awaiting trial are Renato Bosetti and Luca Lucci, the two heads of the Inter and Milan ultras when they were arrested back in September.

Bosetti took control of the "Curva Nord" section of the San Siro where Inter's ultras stand in the aftermath of the murder of Antonio Bellocco, a killing which was shocking due to Bellocco's status as a scion of an 'Ndrangheta mafia family in the southern Italian region of Calabria which bears his surname.

Bellocco was stabbed to death by Andrea Beretta, who has a long criminal record and together with Marco Ferdico led the Inter ultras before Bosetti, weeks before the arrests.

Both Beretta, who was already in prison for the murder of Bellocco at the time of the arrests, and Ferdico are among those who will stand trial on Tuesday.

Beretta killed Bellocco during an altercation outside a boxing gym in a Milan suburb, and has since begun collaborating with the authorities.

- 'Keep away your countrymen' -

Prosecutors accuse Beretta and Ferdico of bringing in Bellocco, who before his death was the only serious mafioso among those being investigated, so that the trio could push aside other groups -- violent hooligans linked with the extreme right -- after former head Inter ultra and career criminal Vittorio Boiocchi was shot dead outside his home in October 2022.

He was also allegedly in place to stop other serious crime groups barging in on the ultras' money-making activities, with Bellocco being told in one of the host of wiretaps collected by investigators: "you do what you need to do... keep away your countrymen (fellow Calabrian mobsters)".

Italian media widely reported at the time of his murder aged 69, that Boiocchi had bragged in wiretapped conversations about earning 80,000 euros ($88,000) a month through his position as ultra leader.

However charging documents seen by AFP do not contain the sort of eye-popping figures that organisations like 'Ndrangheta families bring in with more traditional criminal activities like drug and weapons trafficking and money laundering through legitimate businesses.

The fast-track trial, known as "rito abbreviato" is a legal procedure in Italian law in which defendants judged on the basis of evidence brought by prosecutors, with no debate of that evidence by legal teams representing the defence and the prosecution.

Defendants for criminal offences are guaranteed that their sentences will be cut by a third should they be convicted, but it is not necessarily an admission of guilt as sometimes thought.

The fast-track procedure allows trials to be completed in a much shorter space of time than the years it takes for the ordinary judicial procedure, under which the remaining three people arrested in September began their trial last month.

That trio includes Francesco Lucci, who often took charge of the Milan ultras during his brother Luca Lucci's frequent problems with the law for offences that include drug trafficking and the assault of a Inter fan who was blinded in the attack and later committed suicide.

Neither of the clubs were charged in relation to the crimes alleged by investigators while the Milan ultras on trial are not accused of mafia-related offences.

K.AbuDahab--SF-PST