Reporter calls out Italian minister over police protection

MILAN – An anti-mafia journalist under police protection has lashed out at Italy’s hard-line interior minister for insinuating that not everyone who receives government protection is deserving.

Roberto Saviano, author of the international bestseller “Gomorrah,” called Interior Minister Matteo Salvini “a buffoon” and “minister of the underworld,” in response to statements that all government escorts would be reviewed to determine if they remained a necessity.

Saviano in a video message released Thursday asked Salvini: “Do you think you’re threatening me, you’re intimidating me?” He said he had for the last 11 years been living “under tremendous pressure, the pressure of the clan of the Casalesi, the pressure of the Mexican narcos.”

Salvini said the review wasn’t aimed at Saviano, but that Italy has a record number of people under police protection.