Six Italians killed in mafia vendetta in Germany

DUISBURG, Germany (AFP) - Six Italian men were shot dead here yesterday as a powerful mafia clan exported a bloody vendetta to Germany.

Italy's Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said the victims, who ranged from 16 to 38 years old and included two brothers, were caught up in a feud between mafia families in the Calabria region of southern Italy.

A police patrol alerted by a passerby discovered four of the victims in a Volkswagen Golf hire car and two in an Opel delivery van, which were parked near the central rail station of the industrial western city of Duisburg early yesterday.

Heinz Sprenger, the officer leading the German police investigation, said all six victims had "multiple gunshot wounds".

"These men were shot at indiscriminately," he told a press conference.

Sprenger said some of the victims showed signs of life when they were found by police, but although one survived longer than the others, doctors were unable to resuscitate him.

Police said the men had been celebrating the 18th birthday of one of the victims in a pizza restaurant near the scene of the shooting where some of the men worked.

Sprenger said witnesses reported seeing two people running from the scene of the shooting and a car was driven away at high speed. He appealed for other witnesses to come forward with information.

The officer said he could not confirm that the mafia was involved, but conceded it was possible.

Amato said on Italian television that he feared further reprisals in the ongoing feud within the criminal organisation known as the Ndrangheta, centred on the Calabrian village of San Luca.

"One of the people killed overnight in Duisburg may be one of the perpetrators of the last crime that took place in San Luca," Amato said, adding that police were carefully watching events in the Calabria region to try to prevent a "third act".

Italy's deputy director of police, Luigi De Sena, said such killings in a foreign country were unprecedented.

"This would be the first time it has happened in a foreign country," De Sena told the ANSA news agency.

"The Calabria mafia has a significant presence in Germany but until now they have always tried to keep a low profile."

Anti-mafia police chiefs are expected to meet Thursday in Calabria, ANSA reported. Local deputy prosecutor Salvatore Boemi said the choice of Germany for the killings added a new and "spectacular dimension" to the Ndrangheta feud.

German police said five of the men were related, including the two brothers.

The youngest victim was named only as 16-year-old Francesco G. The oldest was Sebastiano S., who was 38.

Three of the men lived in Duisburg and one in the nearby town of Muelheim. Two of the victims had recently come to Germany.

Police had been alerted to the shootings by a woman passerby who heard the sound of gunfire.

Photographs of the scene showed bullet holes in the front windscreen of the Opel van.

Police said no weapons had been found in initial checks of the vehicles.

Investigators were studying closed-circuit TV footage of area where the bodies were found.

The Ndrangheta crime clan is even more feared and secretive than the Sicilian Mafia.