满地可警员周一在枪杀案现场办案。
加拿大黑手党教父的长子尼克里朱托2007年的图案照片。（加新社）
(满地可28日加新社电)满地可市区周一光天化日发生一宗枪杀案，加拿大黑手党教父的长子在街上被枪手射杀。专家警告说，枪杀事件可能与满地可市近期连串意大利咖啡店汽油弹袭击案有关，黑帮或会掀起一场激战。
加拿大黑手党是本国实力最强大的黑帮组织，周一被杀的男子是黑手党教父维托里朱托(Vito Rizzuto)的儿子尼克里朱托(Nick Rizzuto)。但他的家族律师拒绝评论事件，并向加新社记者说，里朱托家族不会立即发表声明。
周一的凶杀案在满地可市治安较差的NDG区发生，当时正值午饭时间，不少人目睹枪杀案。肇事时，42岁的尼克里朱托站在黑色平治房车附近，突然1名枪手上前，对他连开数枪。他倒在雪地上，途人吓得目瞪口呆。
尼克里朱托送院后证实死亡，他是满地可市今年第31名凶杀案死者。
意大利黑手党问题专家尼卡索(Antonio Nicaso)指出，这宗枪杀案是有人试图从里朱托家族手上夺权，该家族上世纪70年代执掌黑手党后，从没发生这种情况，可谓史无前例。
尼卡索说：“这是一场海啸，是对里朱托家族史无前例的挑战。自70年代以来，他们一直掌控满地可的犯罪活动，没人敢挑战他们的权威。”尼卡索又说，现在有人公然挑战里朱托家族的权威，或许是警方连串行动削弱它的力量，维托里朱托本人目前在美国的监狱关押，有人趁机出击。
报复行动将掀黑帮激战
尼卡索警告说，周一的枪杀案发生后，满地可市黑帮暴力罪案可能升级。他说：“一定有报复行动，维托里朱托的长子被杀，他不是家族普通一员。”
Mob retaliation possible after Rizzuto slaying
U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons says jailed father could ask to attend son’s funeral
Last Updated: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 | 4:00 PM ET
CBC News
A 42-year-old man was gunned down near this Montreal apartment building on Monday. Police will not confirm reports that the victim is Nick Rizzuto Jr. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)
Mafia experts are warning of a potential organized crime war following reports that Nick Rizzuto Jr., the son of Canada’s most powerful mobster, has been killed in what they call a “shocking” murder.
Rizzuto — the eldest son of Vito Rizzuto, the so-called head of Canada’s Mafia — was gunned down on Monday in broad daylight on a residential street in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood.
The brazen assassination took aim squarely at the entire Rizzuto clan and its leadership, not just Nick Jr., according to Antonio Nicaso, an author and expert on the Mafia.
Attacking an eldest son sends a clear message, and “this is an unprecedented challenge to the power of the Rizzuto clan family,” Nicaso told CBC News.
‘We should expect a retaliation. A powerful organization like the Rizzutos cannot do nothing after something like this.’
—Antonio Nicaso, Mafia expert and author
The Rizzutos are facing serious leadership problems and this killing is indicative of their challenges, Nicaso said. The family has been hard-pressed to keep a firm rein on operations since Vito Rizzuto’s arrest in 2004 in connection to three cold-case Brooklyn murders.
With Vito Rizzuto, 63, serving a 10-year sentence in a U.S. jail, the family lost its main mediator who had birthed a “strategic alliance between the Mafia and other criminal organizations … like the Irish Mafia, the Hells Angels, street gangs and Colombia cartels,” Nicaso said.
“Many people think the Rizzuto crime family didn’t like that the alliance involved street gangs, and they lost contracts, they lost business.”
When massive police raids in 2006 targeted many alleged members of the Rizzuto network, a larger void was created in Montreal’s underworld, Nicaso contends.
The Colisée police investigation “practically removed hundreds of people from the street and left a vacuum of power in Montreal, particularly on the street level,” he said.
Nicaso describes the Rizzutos as a “family of disorganized crime” hitting a low point in their history. “According to police … the Rizzuto crime family is headless, without the boss, divided on certain points, but on most points, an organization that is facing the challenge of powerful street gangs.”
It is difficult to predict what will happen in upcoming weeks, but “We should expect a retaliation,” Nicaso said. “A powerful organization like the Rizzutos cannot do nothing after something like this.”
Victim kept low profile
Nick Rizzuto Jr. was a low-profile member of the powerful family, despite his notorious father, Nicaso said. “We knew he was the eldest son of Vito Rizzuto, alleged Mafia boss of Montreal, but nothing more.
Nick Rizzuto Jr. shown here at the Montreal courthouse in a 2007 file photo. (Benoit Pelosse/Le Journal de Montreal/Canadian Press)”He was involved in the real estate, construction businesses, many things, but he avoided several investigations, including Colisée, the [sting] that removed from Montreal an entire level of management of the Rizzuto clan, practically.”
Media reports in Montreal say Nick Rizzuto was visiting a woman friend in NDG when he was shot point blank outside an apartment building just after noon on Monday.
Residents in the neighbourhood said the half-dozen shots sounded like firecrackers.
Paramedics tried to revive the victim before transferring him to hospital, where he was declared dead.
Montreal police would not confirm that the 42-year old victim was Rizzuto, and a family lawyer reached at the hospital also declined to make a statement.
Police said investigators found a weapon near the crime scene but are still hunting for one or more suspects who fled on foot.
Investigators are considering all possiblities, including that the killing may be related to a string of recent firebombings of Montreal cafés.
The shooting is Montreal’s 31st homicide this year.
Vito Rizzuto is currently in a medium-security prison in Colorado, serving a 10-year sentence for racketeering in connection to the Brooklyn murders.
He did not face murder charges because the statute of limitations had run out on the crime.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons said Vito Rizzuto could ask to attend his son’s funeral.
Spokeswoman Felicia Ponce said the warden at the Colorado prison would have to authorize the request, and Rizzuto would have to foot the travel and security costs.
Ponce said such requests are confidential.
With files from The Canadian Press
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/12/29/montreal-cp-rizzuto-slaying.html
