People who have joined Mafia fan clubs on social networking site Facebook are mobsters in the making and should be investigated, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's transnational crime envoy Carlo Vizzini said Wednesday.
Thousands of people have signed up to fan club pages dedicated to jailed Cosa Nostra superbosses Salvatore (Toto') Riina and Bernardo Provenzano.
Reacting to a statement from Palermo public prosecutor's office that it will not investigate mafioso pages because they are not a criminal offence, Vizzini said that user's personal details should still be collected before Facebook is asked to remove the pages.
''With the exception of a small minority of macabre pranksters, these people represent potential mobsters,'' said Vizzini, who is also a member of Italy's parliamentary anti-Mafia commission.
''They belong to the so-called grey zone of people willing to support the bosses and the Mafia''.
Police said they were monitoring the site but explained that the only law governing opinions expressed on the Internet related to race discrimination and Fascism.
People who join online fan clubs dedicated to Mafia bosses are therefore immune from prosecution, as are those who signed up to serial killer fan sites, they said.
FACEBOOK UNDER FIRE.
California-based Facebook has met with international criticism over the last week for deciding to ban pictures of breastfeeding women from online profiles but so far failing to take a stand against Mafia-related pages.
The Union of Young Italian Lawyers (UGAI) on Wednesday appealed to its members to remove their profiles in protest at Facebook's silence and added that its owners could be seen as complicit in instigating criminal behaviour.
''Although it's clear that the Facebook owners do not share the opinions of the Mafia fan clubs, it's also true that they could be seen as abetting because they are tolerating such content,'' said UGAI president Gaetano Romano.
At the weekend centrist UDC senator and anti-Mafia commission member Giampiero D'Alia called for Italian politicians to remove their profiles and said there was a ''concrete risk'' that the Mafia could genuinely take an interest in such sites.
''We need to prevent Mafia and criminal infiltration of the Internet and force Facebook to clear the social network of those who put themselves - not just virtually - at the disposition of Mafia bosses,'' he said.
Opposition Democratic Party leader Walter Veltroni meanwhile joined a new Facebook group set up to ask site organisers to remove mafioso pages and which currently has 50,000 subscribers.
''We must stop criminal organisations from finding space on Facebook. Freedom of expression has nothing to do with it - the Mafia must be destroyed and we must do it together. Thank you guys,'' Veltroni wrote on the site.
FURY OF VICTIMS' RELATIVES.
The Facebook row first broke a week ago when furious relatives of Mafia victims called for Facebook to remove fan club pages.
One club dedicated to Toto' 'The Beast' Riina has almost 2,228 subscribers, who leave him messages wishing him a happy Christmas, telling him he's ''great'' and posting videos about him.
Riina, 78, was the undisputed Cosa Nostra 'boss of bosses' until his arrest in January 1993 and is currently serving twelve life sentences for murder.
Riina's successor, Bernardo Provenzano, has a smaller fan group with 202 subscribers who claim to ''honour someone who tricked the state for 40 years'' as well as a group calling for him to be made a saint with 152 subscribers.
Another group on the site is searching for an ''official look-alike'' for the Cosa Nostra kingpin and posts photos of people bearing physical similarities to the 75-year-old.
A peasant who rose up the Mafia's ranks through his ability as a killer, Provenzano helped run the Mafia from various hiding places for more than 40 years before police caught up with him at a sheep farm outside Corleone in April 2006.
More than 1,000 people have joined fan pages dedicated to jailed Naples Camorra Mafia kingpin Raffaele Cutolo, who users describe as ''Naples' Number One''.
Cutolo is currently serving seven life sentences and has spent two-thirds of his life, a total of 45 years, behind bars.
Many individual Facebook users have meanwhile signed on to the site using the names and photos of Riina, Provenzano and Trapani boss Matteo Messina Denaro, the last of Provenzano's key henchmen still at large.
A former Porsche-driving playboy from Trapani, 46-year-old Messina Denaro has been on the run since 1993 and enjoys a semi-mythical status among the younger generations of Cosa Nostra.
The gangster sealed a reputation for brutality by murdering a rival Trapani boss and strangling his three-month-pregnant girlfriend.
Facebook users accepted as 'friends' by people claiming to be the mobster post messages asking if they are ''the real Messina Denaro'' and telling them they are ''honoured by his friendship''.
Police said Wednesday that users who posed as notorious mafiosi on the site could be be prosecuted for stealing identities.
