Italy prosecutor admonishes Salvini over mafia arrest tweet

ROME — Donald Trump isn’t the only politician to court trouble with his tweets.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini received an unprecedented admonition from the chief prosecutor of Turin after he tweeted that police had arrested 15 Nigerian “mafiosi” when, according to the prosecutor, the operation was still underway.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro said Salvini’s premature tweets risked compromising the investigation and violated basic law enforcement norms about what information to release to the public and when. He urged Salvini to refrain from similar messaging “to avoid the risk of damaging investigations underway.”

Salvini, whose rise to national power has been accompanied by his growing use of social media, insisted he had received a text message from Turin police 90 minutes before he tweeted Tuesday, and denied compromising the operation.

The Associated Press

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