Italy mayor hailed for work on migrants placed under house arrest

Rome (dpa) - The mayor of a town in southern Italy who won international plaudits for revitalizing his community by opening it up to migrants was placed under house arrest Tuesday for abetting illegal migration.Under Domenico Lucano‘s leadership, the semi-abandoned town of Riace was repopulated with hundreds of migrants who were trained to pick up local artisan crafts. For his efforts, Lucano was included in a 2016 list of the World‘s Greatest Leaders by US magazine Fortune.But according to Prosecutor Luigi D‘Alessio, Lucano helped migrants in a "particularly unscrupolous" manner, for example by organizing fake marriages or granting residency papers to failed asylum seekers with no right to stay in Italy.In a statement released by financial crimes police Guardia di Finanza, D‘Alessio said Lucano was heard in a wiretap describing himself as "an outlaw" who was out to circumvent "these stupid laws" on immigration.The mayor was also arrested for breaking public procurement laws while assigning garbage collection contracts, and was investigated, but not charged, for the misallocation of public funds. The judge who convalidated his arrest found no evidence for the latter crime.Lucano was defended by anti-Mafia author and activist Roberto Saviano, who has hailed Riace as a model of multi-cultural integration. On Facebook, he said the mayor‘s actions amounted to "civil disobedience."Earlier, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, an immigration hardliner, wondered on Twitter what "Saviano and all the bleeding-heart liberals who want to fill Italy with immigrants will have to say" about Lucano‘s arrest.