Firm quits Sicily to spurn Mafia

The pullout comes despite police moves against key suspects in Sicily

An Italian cement firm is pulling out of Sicily in protest at what it says is Mafia extortion.

Italcementi says its subsidiary Calcestruzzi is closing "as a sign of a refusal to submit to, or to show any compliance with" the Mafia.

Twenty-six people work for the firm at seven sites in Sicily.

The decision to pull out comes 10 days after an employee was found guilty of Mafia association, an Italcementi spokesman told the BBC News website.

"We wanted to give an important message of disassociation and distancing from the Mafia," Sergio Grippa said.

"We have started a process of checking all our procedures, and getting all our operations checked by high-level anti-Mafia experts.

"We don't want any shadow of doubt to linger over [Italcementi's] 23,000 employees."

The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the move follows the discovery that concrete of a poorer quality than normal was being supplied.

The implications are huge, he says, as this is first time a leading Italian industrial group has publicly thrown down the gauntlet and said no to Mafia intimidation.

The Mafia extorts money from practically all public works contractors and most retail shops on the Mediterranean island, and the Italian state has hitherto failed to react, he adds.

Move welcomed

The Italian employers' federation Confindustria welcomed Italcementi's decision .

The federation's Sicilian head, Yvan Lo Bello, is already under police protection and local offices have been ransacked in an attack blamed on the Mafia.

The pullout by Italcementi comes despite recent police breakthroughs in anti-Mafia operations in Sicily, including the arrest of a number of high-profile suspects - among them alleged Cosa Nostra "boss of bosses" Salvatore Lo Piccolo.

Another senior Mafia suspect, Daniele Emmanuello, was killed in a police raid.

Mafia members operating in Sicily are accused of taking part in extortion, drug trafficking and other crimes.

In the past six months, three separate inquiries have been held into Mafia links with the cement industry, Italcementi says.