CROTONE - - A poster, published by the Petilia Policastro local government, expressing sympathy for one of the killers of a Mafia rebel, has sparked indignation, according to Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. 

 This follows the murder of Lea Garofalo by Rosario Curcio. Garofalo was a collaborator of justice. She spoke out against the 'ndrangheta, a Mafia-style gang in Calabria. Her body was dissolved in acid after she was kidnapped and killed for rebelling against the 'ndranghetist' family. 

 The poster was published by the municipal administration of Petilia Policastro, the town in the Crotone area where both were originally from, on the funeral of Curcio, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 for Garofalo's murder and who committed suicide on June 29, 2022.

 “Mayor Simone Saporito and the municipal administration participate in the grief that has struck the Curcio family for the loss of their dear relative,” reads the poster of the municipality, which was also a civil party in the trial.

 The mayor has attempted to justify the initiative: “As a municipal administration, we made an agreement with funeral homes to make proximity posters for all funerals held in the city. The appropriateness of making the poster is indeed debatable, but we make a poster for everyone. Why not to him? In the face of death we are all equal. It would have been reverse discrimination not to do so,” he says. 

 But harsh condemnation comes from the Democratic Party, Fatto explains: “The province of Crotone does not deserve administrators who bring discredit on the entire region. On behalf of the entire democratic community of Crotone and Calabria, I call for the immediate resignation of the mayor and the municipal council,” says provincial secretary Leo Barberio.

 Fratelli d'Italia's Undersecretary for the Interior, Wanda Ferro, from Calabria, also spoke on the matter: “The mayor’s initiative to participate in mourning for the death of one of Lea Garofalo's killers on behalf of the municipal administration is unacceptable. The mafia lives on symbols, and the funeral posters put up by the mayor represent a bowing down of the institutions to the memory of Rosario Curcio, sentenced to life imprisonment for having participated in the murder and destruction of Lea's corpse, punished for having rebelled against a 'ndrangheta destiny.”

 Ferro concluded: “No, Lea Garofalo and the man who burned her body to make it disappear are not the same, not even in the face of death. Those who represent institutions must always choose sides. The mayor has shown he chose the wrong one.”

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