The notorious head of a clan of Italian football hooligans was executed in cold blood in a park in Rome, reportedly by a hit man disguised as a jogger.
Fabrizio Piscitelli, who led a group of far-Right ‘ultra’ fans who support Lazio football club, was shot at point blank range in the head while he sat on a park bench.
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The murder happened in broad daylight on Wednesday evening in a park on the outskirts of Rome which is dominated by the towering ruins of ancient Roman aqueducts.
Piscitelli’s assassin was dressed in running gear to blend in with other joggers, who converge on the park on summer evenings after the heat of the day has receded.
The assassin reportedly approached Piscitelli from behind, shot him in the head, and then ran off from the Parco degli Acquedotti, which featured in the award-winning film La Grande Bellezza or The Great Beauty.
Piscitelli, 53, was the head of a group of extreme Right-wing fans known as the Irrudicibili or Diehards.
Nicknamed Diabolik after an adult comic character, he had also been investigated on numerous occasions for drug trafficking.
Police believe his murder may have been a settling of scores linked to the drug trade, Italian media reported.
EPA
Lazio’s ‘ultra’ fans have long had a reputation for far-Right sympathies and violence towards their arch-rivals, Roma.
In August last year they banned women from sitting in the front rows of the part of the Rome stadium that they control, known as the Curva Nord or North Stand.
"La Curva Nord is a sacred place – women, wives or fiancées are not allowed in the first 10 rows," they said in a statement.
"We invite those who choose the stadium as an alternative to a romantic day at Villa Borghese (a park in Rome) to instead choose another place."
Lazio, a Serie A team, have also been accused of anti-Semitism.
In January last year the club was fined €50,000 after supporters placed anti-Semitic stickers depicting Anne Frank in Rome’s main stadium.
The Dutch schoolgirl, one of the most famous victims of the Holocaust, was portrayed in a Roma jersey alongside slogans such as “Roma fans are Jews”.
The stickers were found in an area of the Olympic Stadium which is occupied by the ‘ultras’.
Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp in 1945.