The ringleader of a gangland style massacre of six people in Germany was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on Tusday for an attack that highlighted the international reach of Italy's Calabrian mafia, AP reported. Giovanni Strangio, 32, was one of eight people convicted and given Italy's stiffest sentence for their roles in a violent feud that culminated in the 2007 slayings in the western German city of Duisburg, the court clerk's office in the southern Italian city of Locri said. Three other people were convicted and sentenced to terms ranging from nine to 12 years, while three more were acquitted, the court said. Six Italian men were gunned down Aug. 15, 2007, as they left a birthday party at an Italian restaurant in Duisburg. Prosecutors said the massacre was part of a long-running feud between two clans of the 'ndrangheta organized crime syndicate, which is based in the southern Italian region of Calabria. The 'ndrangheta is today considered more powerful than the Sicilian Mafia and has become one of the world's biggest cocaine traffickers. The feud, which pitted the Nirta-Strangio families against the Pelle-Vottari-Romeo families in the tiny Calabrian town of San Luca, cooled from 2000 to 2006 but erupted again when Maria Strangio, the wife of one of the presumed heads of the clan, was killed on Dec. 25, 2006. -- SPA
