Rome - Luca Traini, an Italian neo-Nazi sympathizer who earlier
this year injured six African migrants in a drive-by shooting that
caused nationwide consternation, was on Wednesday sentenced to 12
years' imprisonment.
A court in Macerata, the central Italian town where the crime took
place, found the 29-year-old guilty of attempted massacre, aggravated
by racist motives, and illegal possession of a weapon, the ANSA news
agency said.
On February 3, the 29-year-old Traini drove around Macerata shooting
at black people, in what he said was an act of revenge for the local
murder of an 18-year-old female heroin addict. A Nigerian drug dealer
has been accused of the woman's murder.
Traini is an unemployed body builder, with a neo-Nazi tattoo on his
forehead. At the end of his rampage, police arrested him on the steps
of a military monument, where he stood draped in the Italian flag,
holding up his arm in a Fascist salute.
Wednesday's first instance ruling, which can be appealed, was in line
with what the prosecution had asked for. Traini opted for a
fast-track trial, which allows for more lenient sentencing.
In a statement before the court retired to deliberate, Traini said he
was not mentally unstable, and denied any racist intent. "They tell
me I am crazy or borderline but I only had a difficult childhood," he
said according to ANSA.
The Macerata shootings poisoned the national debate on migration
during the campaign for March 4 general elections, which have led to
the formation of a populist, anti-immigration government comprising
the nationalist League and anti-establishment Five Star Movement.