‘Gomorrah’ Writer Roberto Saviano Due To Stand Trial On Tuesday On Defamation Charges Brought By Italy’s Far-Right PM Giorgia Meloni

deadline.com:

Italian writer, journalist and political commentator Roberto Saviano is due to head to court in Rome on Tuesday (November 15) for the first hearing in a defamation trial brought against him by Italy’s newly installed, right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni.The case is related to an incident that took place prior to Meloni taking the reins of power in Italy in October.Meloni is suing Saviano over comments he made on the current affairs show Piazza Pulita in December 2020, during a discussion about the phenomenon of asylum seekers on its shores via small boats, in which he referred to her as a “bastard” for her hard-line, anti-immigrant stance.

The judge charged with a preliminary investigation into the case that the “epithet bastard” had gone “beyond the rights of political criticism” and gave the green light for the trial.

The trial is seen as a test case for Italian freedom of expression and the rising use of defamation charges as a means to gag the press.Saviano is best known internationally for his 2006 investigative work Gomorrah, about the Naples organized crime group the Camorra.

The book stoked the ire of crime bosses and led to numerous death threats, resulting in Saviano being granted police protection.Italian director Matteo Garrone adapted the work, with Saviano, to a fiction feature of the same name which won the Cannes Grand Prize of the Jury in 2008.