Anti-mafia witness elected to Italian parliament

  The widow of a man killed by the Sicilian mafia who has to live under armed protection after turning state witness has been elected to the Italian parliament, official results on Monday showed.

Piera Aiello, 51, had to do her campaigning as candidate of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement behind closed doors as her face cannot be shown in public for fear of mafia reprisals.

She won almost 53% of the vote in her constituency in Marsala in western Sicily, far ahead of her centre-right rival with 26%.

Aiello witnessed two mafia hitmen kill her husband, the son of Sicilian mafia boss Vito Atria, in 1991.

Atria was shot dead in 1985 and his son, Nicolo', had spoken publicly about wreaking revenge. That was enough for a rival mafia clan to kill him too.

She turned in the killers and provided evidence against dozens of mafia members to crusading prosecutor Paolo Borsellino, who was himself killed in a car bomb attack just months later in 1992.

Aiello has said she decided to run because of the movement's commitment to tackle social inequality and because she wanted her identity back after being forced to move to a different part of Italy.