By ADNKronos International
A judge in Rome has convicted four men of inciting racial hatred on a neo-Nazi website and sentenced them to between two and three years of house arrest. The judge sentenced ringleader Daniele Scarpino, aged 24, to three years, 30-year-old Diego Masi and 23-year-old Luca Ciampaglia to two and a half years, and 42-year-old Mirko Viola for two years and eight months.
The four men from central and northern Italy were found guilty of targeting "Jews and immigrants, advocating the supremacy of the white race and instigating racism and Holocaust-denial".
Riccardo Pacifici, president of the Jewish community in Rome welcomed the sentences. "The judge has taken an exemplary decision that marks an important step forward in the fight against racial hatred," he said.
The judge banned the four men from using the internet during their sentences and ordered them to pay 5,000 euros to the Jewish community in Italy, to the Italian prime minister's office and to the writer Roberto Saviano. The men belong to the Italian branch of the neo-Nazi group Stormfront, an international body founded by Don Black, the former head of the US white supremacist movement the Ku Klux Klan.
Stormfront Italy had drawn up a list of 'Italian deliquents' including Pacifici, Adel Smith, the President of the Muslim Union of Italy, several journalists and members of the judiciary as well as the mayor of Padua, Flavio Zanonato.
The group targeted targeted individuals who expressed support for immigrants including former Chamber of Deputies Speaker Gianfranco Fini and the Italian International Cooperation and Integration Minister Andrea Riccardi.
Police arrested the men in the northern Italian city of Milan and in the central cities of Frosinone and Pescara last November and shut down the neo-Nazi 'Stormfront' website after an investigation that began in October 2011.
Searches were carried out across the country at the homes of 17 suspects in November's operation, during which police found Nazi-Fascist propaganda and memorabilia, as well as weapons including knives, daggers, a bayonet and various clubs.
