ROME -- The regional president of the Campania region Vincenzo De Luca was shockingly recorded saying that the head of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission Rosy Bindi "deserves to be killed," while PM Renzi expressed  Friday his solidarity for Bindi.

 The video broadcast by the Italian television channel ‘Matrix,’ shows De Luca controversially saying that “that which Bindi did was wicked, she deserves to be killed. We have restored 1.5 or 2 percent of the votes,” by which he referred to the president of the anti-mafia commission putting his name on a list of “unsuitable candidates” just before the 2015 regional elections.

 In his video interview, De Luca spoke of “acts of political delinquency. And morality does not come into it, it was all an attack on the Renzi government,” still referring to Bindi’s declarations about him.

 Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, said to TG1, “The words of the Campania governor Vincenzo De Luca, are totally unacceptable -- I express total solidarity with Rosy Bindi.” In a tweet, Bindi thanked those who had expressed solidarity -- “it did me good,” she wrote.

 In reaction to the video being broadcast, Vincenzo De Luca said, “This serious incident that happened a year ago has now ended. There was and there is no problem with the honourable member of parliament. I reconfirm my respect for Bindi that goes beyond every vulgar manipulation.”

 According to De Luca, the video represents “the umpteenth act of journalistic delinquency,” in relation to which “we will verify with the legal office the details of the legal action that can be taken against a clear violation of privacy and private violence.”

 “I wish to clear up that I did not give Matrix any answers in relation to the honourable Bindi. At the end of this same interview, the journalist pulled out his tablet and asked, while the cameramen were putting away their equipment, if he could show me what Vittorio Sgarbi had said about the honourable Bindi, as a guest on a previous show. We talked about Sgarbi, and commented on it together, smiling and joking,” he continued.

 The regional leader of Campania said that he would check what legal action can be taken against this “umpteenth episode of professional foul play and uncivil behaviour.”

 However, De Luca’s words have sparked great controversy, inside and out of his left-wing democratic political party. The vice-secretary Lorenzo Guerini said that these were “unacceptable words” and expressed “full solidarity” with Bindi. “No political polemic, however bitter, or no decision, however controversial, should justify expressions like De Luca’s reported by the media,” he said. Many in the party agreed, issuing similar statements.

 The vice-president of the anti-mafia commission Claudio Fava also said that about De Luca that “he talks like a Mafioso.”

 nkd