Italian police on Monday arrested 35 people including two local politicians in connection with trash-related riots in a Naples suburb earlier this year.
Investigators said Naples civil protection and graveyards chief, Giorgio Nugnes, and a right-wing city councillor, Marco Nonno, of the National Alliance party, were placed under house arrest on charges of having organised protests against reopening the Pianura rubbish dump in January.
Nugnes is accused of using privileged information on the movements of police to help protestors set up road blocks, while Nonno allegedly used his links with groups of hard-core 'ultra'' football fans to fuel the riot, police claim.
They said two groups of football hooligans, the Teste Matte (Head Cases) and the Niss (No Meetings, Only Clashes), were involved in the riots.
A local Camorra Mafia clan, the Varriale, who were opposed to reopening the dump because it would devalue house prices, also took part, according to investigators.
Nugnes said in a note to Naples Mayor Rosa Russo Iervolino that he was was ''absolutely calm and a complete stranger to the charges'' following his arrest and asked the mayor to suspend him from duty until his name was cleared.
But Forza Italia senator Antonio Gentile called on the left-wing mayor to resign, while People of Freedom acting House whip, Italo Bocchino, said parliament should consider whether the city council should be dissolved in the wake of the scandal.
Campania tourism chief Claudio Velardo welcomed the arrests as ''good news''.
''Politicians should stay in their place and, on certain occasions, should not be among the crowd inciting people,'' he added.
Protests broke out in Pianura in January as the city's trash crisis began to take hold following a breakdown in the rubbish collection system.
Masked men threw stones and punches at policemen and journalists, burnt city buses and blocked roads to prevent the reopening of the dump because of health concerns from local residents.
Shopkeepers in the area were forced to close their businesses for several days as the riots played out.
In June a report by the Naples public prosecutor's office revealed that around 60 people living near the Pianura dump had developed Hodgkin's lymphoma, seeming to confirm local fears.
A police investigation showed that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, large quantities of hazardous waste including asbestos and hospital refuse from northern Italy ended up in the Pianura dump as part of Camorra business operations.
