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Criminality registers 10-pct drop in Italy: interior minister

Xinhua, December 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Criminality in Italy dropped more than 10 percent in 2015, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano announced here on Tuesday.

Ministry figures showed that this year murders decreased by 11.2 percent, while robberies fell by 13.8 percent and thefts dropped by 9.7 percent compared to 2014. The positive trend was registered for the second consecutive year.

The minister gave the figures at a press conference while presenting the annual results of Italy's anti-terrorism and anti-crime fight.

The year 2015 has been a positive one regarding the fight against terrorism, Alfano said. Anti-terrorism initiatives in the year of the world exposition in Milan and the Catholic Jubilee in Rome were at the center of the ministry's policies, also thanks to a fruitful collaboration with parliament which passed tougher anti-terrorism measures, he noted.

A total of 64 extremists have been expelled from Italy since the beginning of 2015. The latest expulsion of a 30-year-old Moroccan living in Bologna, a city of northern Italy, was carried out last night after he conducted extremist propaganda activities on social networks, Alfano told journalists.

Also in relation to terrorism, since the beginning of 2015 a total of 259 extremists have been arrested, 74,177 have been checked and 489 investigated. In addition, police have checked 11,647 vehicles and shut down 6,636 websites, according to the ministry's figures. An unprecedented number of 6,300 troops, in addition to police forces, have been deployed at central venues of major cities of Italy, which has significantly increased investments in security and defense, Alfano said.

Organized crime is the other big issue that concerns security in Italy besides terrorism, the minister said.

He said a total of 175 operations have been carried out and 1,794 people arrested by police in 2015. In addition, 53 fugitives have been caught including seven dangerous ones, of which one was included on the list of the 100 most wanted people in Italy. Endit