HE always feared one day they would make him pay. Roberto Saviano was forced into hiding under a police escort two years ago after publishing Gomorrah, a best-seller that laid bare the gory details of Mafia brutality in the Casalesi clan of Naples.
Now Mr Saviano, 29, has been assigned more armed guards after a supergrass revealed that mobsters are plotting to blow him up by detonating a car bomb on a motorway.
Godfathers are bent on retribution after a film based on the book, which was released in Britain this week (review
here), portrayed a city of corruption and execution overseen by the ruthless Camorra crime organisation.
Shot in gritty documentary style, Gomorrah has won critical acclaim, as well as a prize at Cannes, and is a strong contender for next year's Oscars.
The film Gomorrah depicts the Casalesi clan as responsible for more than 4,000 murders in 30 years in Italy, as well as making money through extortion, drugs and arms trafficking and rubbish disposal. Its members are portrayed as extremely dangerous, relentless and petty.
An informer, Carmine Schiavone, a cousin of the jailed godfather Francesco Schiavone, told police that the Casalesi clan are "plotting to blow Saviano and his police escort up before Christmas".
Schiavone, who is living in hiding under a new name and with 24 armed guards, told police: "The plan to kill Saviano has moved into the operational phase. The idea is to have Saviano and his police escort taken out by Christmas on the motorway between Rome and Naples with a bomb."
Police have taken the threats seriously and have increased security around Mr Saviano and his safehouse.
A source at the Naples anti-Mafia department said: "We are checking out Schiavone's claims, but as a precaution security has been tightened up around Saviano.
"What he has told us is not being treated lightly. Other information he has given to us in the past, since he turned informer, has proved to be correct."
Police are linking the development with information from another informer, Oreste Spagnuolo, who told police that a fugitive godfather, Giuseppe Setalo, was "looking for a quantity of explosive because it was the easiest way to kill someone".
In a radio interview yesterday, Mr Saviano spoke of his life under police protection since 2006, when the book came out. He said: "It's been very hard for me. In the beginning I thought I would not be able to cope.
"Your daily routine is torn apart and you realise it will only get worse.
"You are constantly suspicious and you trust no-one. You are in solitude as the ones that you love disappear from you. They are terrible days, but I try to make it easier by going to the gym and practising boxing with my lads, the police bodyguards."
Before the latest threats, he said in April that he was certain the "Mafia will make me pay" for the book. He added: "With my words, I have tried to change something, but the price has been too high. I just wish I could go back to a normal life."
In a case of life imitating art, earlier this week an actor who played a godfather in Gomorrah was among seven people arrested in a police crackdown.
Bernardino Terracciano, 53, was seized over the weekend on suspicion of extorting protection money and having ties to the Casalesi clan.
Best-seller that points the finger at senior mobstersIN GOMORRAH, Robert Saviano named killers and their bosses and went into the detail of how the Camorra ran its bloody empire.
He also revealed how the Camorra had set up businesses in cities across the world, including Aberdeen, where crime boss Augusto La Torre and his brother Antonio, both from Casale di Principe, lived.
Augusto has now become an informer and he and his brother are back in Italy serving lengthy prison sentences.
Italian police estimate that the Camorra makes more than £130 billion a year and it was recently revealed that the organisation had bought shares in the reconstruction of the World Trade Centre in New York.
The book has sold more than one million copies and been translated into 33 languages. It is said to be a "hot read" in Italian prisons.
Gomorrah is the name of a biblical town destroyed by its own vices.
The book title echoes the name of the Mafia clan and highlights Naples's inextricable links to organised crime.
The full article contains 753 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
