The trial will focus on mob activity in the Calabrian province of Vibo Valentia, an area dominated by the Mancuso clan. The defendants will be locked in cages.
More than 900 witnesses will give evidence at the trial, which starts on Wednesday, and investigators will produce 24,000 wiretaps and bugged conversations to back up charges of murder, extortion and drug dealing.
The hearings promise to rival the 1986 “Maxi†trial in Palermo.
