A 28-year-old man opened fire on a group of African immigrants in the town of Macerata, Saturday, wounding five men and one woman. The suspect, Luca Traini, reportedly wore an Italian flag around his neck and made a fascist salute before his arrest, according to local media. A copy of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was later found at his home.
The political reaction to the shooting split neatly along party lines, with the right-wing coalition led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi blaming the attacks on the rising number of immigrants residing in the country. [...]
Traini ran, unsuccessfully, for local elections last year with Berlusconi’s largest coalition partner, the Northern League, a once regional party that has been transformed by its leader Matteo Salvini into an explicitly anti-immigrant political force. [...]
Running under the slogan “Honesty, experience and wisdom,” Berlusconi has been trying to portray himself as a conservative alternative to his allies’ Trump-style populism — in coalition with the Northern League and the far-right Brothers of Italy, but also someone who could credibly join a centrist government with the Democratic Party. [...]
Luigi Di Maio, the lead candidate of the anti-establishment 5Stars Movement, which has taken a hard line on illegal immigration, refused to comment on the crime, saying he didn’t want to “exploit it.”
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