Image copyright AFP Image caption A handgun was found in the suspect's car

Italian police have arrested a gunman suspected of carrying out a drive-by shooting spree that targeted African immigrants.

At least six people were wounded in the central town of Macerata.

The suspect, named locally as Luca Traini, 28, had an Italian flag wrapped around his neck when he was detained.

He had taken part in regional elections for the anti-immigration Northern League last year and reportedly made a fascist salute when he was captured.

Italy votes in national elections on 4 March, with immigration one of the key issues.

Link to teenager's killing?

Image copyright EPA Image caption The suspect, named locally as Luca Traini, following his detention

Mr Traini, who is from the surrounding Le Marche region, did not resist when he was detained after fleeing from his car near the town's war memorial. He is now being questioned. Police found a gun in his car.

The shooting had begun two hours earlier at about 11:00 local time (10:00 GMT), La Repubblica website reports.

The mayor had warned people to stay indoors during the incident, which saw shootings across a number of locations.

The victims are being treated in hospital. At least one of them is said to be in a serious condition.

Image copyright EPA Image caption The shootings took place in various parts of the town

Video of the moment the suspect was apprehended was published by local website, Il Resto del Carlino, showing a white bald man draped in an Italian tricolour being escorted away by police.

Italian police also tweeted a photo of the moment of capture, saying one of the wounded had required surgery.

Shots had been fired in the Via Spalato and Via dei Velini parts of town, two key areas in an investigation into the murder of an 18-year-old girl whose body was found dismembered and hidden in two suitcases last Wednesday.

A 29-year-old Nigerian male migrant has been detained over the killing of Pamela Mastropietro.

Several racist comments calling for revenge attacks were posted on the Facebook page of the victim's mother in the run up to Saturday's shootings, Ansa reports.

Local reports are linking the two incidents.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Bullet holes were found on shop windows in the area targeted by the gunman

Right-wing politicians have been using Pamela Mastropietro's killing to promote their anti-migrant message as part of their campaign for the general election.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has temporarily suspended campaigning over the shootings.

Opinion polls suggest a centre-right bloc, including the Northern League, Forza Italia and the far-right Brothers of Italy, will win the most seats but not a working majority.

With about 28% support in the opinion polls, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement is the most popular single party. This suggests there could be tough coalition negotiations, or even another election, after 4 March.</s>A gunman drove through Macerata, Italy this morning (Feb. 3), opening fire from his vehicle, reportedly shouting “Viva l’Italia!” and making a fascist salute. The attack didn’t end until early afternoon, with at least six African migrants wounded. Authorities believe the rampage was racially motivated.

Police detained a 28-year-old Italian they believe to be responsible. He was said to have been wearing an Italian flag draped over his shoulder as he was arrested. Local media identified the man as Luca Traini, a Northern League (Lega Nord) member who had previously run for office in town elections.

Founded with secession from Italy in mind, the Northern League has since taken up a harshly anti-immigration platform, with Northern League federal secretary and party head Matteo Salvini promising to triple deportations and overhaul border security if the party is elected in Italy’s forthcoming general election, scheduled for March 4.

Today’s attack comes days after an 18-year-old Italian woman’s dismembered body was found in two suitcases near Macerata. Pamela Mastropietro ran away from a rehab center and was last seen alive Jan. 30. A 29-year-old Nigerian man was detained as a suspect, prompting parties like the Northern League to decry the crime and push their nationalist agenda.

“The left has blood on its hands,” Salvini wrote in a Facebook post about the incident.</s>Italian police on Saturday arrested a man accused of what is believed to be a racially motivated shooting that left six African migrants injured in the central city of Macerata.

The people targeted in the Saturday shootings were all black and the suspect in the shooting, Luca Traini, 28, was white. Traini, who had an Italian flag wrapped around his neck when he was detained, has run in local elections as a candidate of the right-wing League party, according to the center-left Democratic party, which is currently in power.

One of the victims faces life-threatening injuries, according to the Associated Press.

In a Saturday night news conference, Interior Minister Marco Minniti called the shooting an “evident display of racial hatred.”

Police allege that Traini, over the course of around two hours, shot bystanders while driving an Alfa Romeo car through the streets of Macerata, a town of 43,000, around 146 miles northeast of Rome.

The shooting may be related to a violent murder that occurred days ago.

A Nigerian man was charged Thursday with the brutal killing of 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro, who was found chopped up and placed in two different suitcases near Macerata. The killings stoked racial tension amid an election season where immigration is a lightning rod issue. The suspect in the murder, Innocent Oseghale, was denied asylum in Italy, but remained in the country, according to the Guardian.

Minniti said he believed the shooting may have been an act of revenge.

“They were all of color. This is … a grave fact. As was grave what happened to Pamela. The closeness of the two events makes you imagine there could be a connection.”

Matteo Salvini, the head of League, has campaigned on deportation of migrants and has used Mastropietro’s slaying in campaign rhetoric ahead of the March 4 national elections. Salvini distanced himself from Saturday's shooting, but has continued his hardline immigration stance.

"Whoever shoots is a delinquent, no matter the skin color. It is clear that out of control immigration ... brings social conflict," Salvini told reporters after the shooting.</s>Police in Italy have arrested a man suspected of opening fire Saturday on foreign nationals in the town of Macerata, injuring six people.

A police photo shows a man being apprehended who appears to have an Italian flag wrapped around his neck.

The drive-by shootings were “racially motivated” and believed to be connected to the recent slaying of an 18-year-old Italian woman in which a Nigerian man was arrested, Macerata’s mayor, Romano Carancini, told CNN.

The victims included five people from Nigeria and one from Gambia, according to Lt. Col. Andrea Corinaldesi of the Carabinieri.

The shootings took place near where the dismembered body of Pamela Mastropietro was found Tuesday.

The suspect in Saturday’s shootings — identified by Carancini as Luca Traini, 28 — was apprehended by police while making a fascist salute in front of a monument to war victims. A gun was found in his car.

According to election records, Traini had been a candidate in the nearby town of Corridonia for the anti-immigration Northern League party in the 2017 local elections but received no votes.

Carancini confirmed to CNN that he was the same man.

“We must be united against hatred,” Carancini said.

The shooting underscored racial tensions in Italy ahead of the upcoming national elections. Italy’s Northern League party distanced itself from the shooter but the party’s leader Matteo Salvini said mass migration has caused similar violent acts.

“Violence is never the solution, violence is always to be condemned. And whoever is guilty must pay,” Salvini said in statement posted on Facebook. “Immigration out of control leads to chaos, anger, social confrontation.”

Marco Valerio Verni, the uncle of the slain woman Mastropietro, told CNN affiliate Rai News: “All we want is justice. We cannot fight barbarism with more barbarism. Such actions are not justifiable. This country is fed up — but such reactions can never be justified. We are a civilized country. We should not let barbarism prevail over civilization.”</s>MILAN — A lone Italian gunman shot and wounded six African immigrants Saturday in a two-hour drive-by shooting spree, authorities said, terrorizing a small city in central Italy where a Nigerian man was arrested days earlier in a teenager’s gruesome killing.

The shooting suspect with right-wing political ties had an Italian flag tied around his neck as he was arrested hours later in the city of Macerata. Authorities identified him as Luca Traini, a 28-year-old Italian with no previous record.

Traini had run for town council on the anti-migrant Northern League’s ticket in a local election last year in Corridonia, the party confirmed, but its mayoral candidate lost the race. The news agency ANSA quoted friends of his as saying that Traini had previously been affiliated with Italian extremist parties like the neo-fascist Forza Nuova and CasaPound.

As the violent attack unfolded in Macerata in Italy’s central Marche region, police told residents to stay inside and ordered a halt to public transport to limit the casualties. Such violent shootings are rare in Italy, and usually associated with the southern Italian mafia.

A video posted by the il Resto di Carlino newspaper later showed the suspect with an Italian flag draped over his shoulders being arrested by armed Carabinieri officers in the city center, near where he apparently fled his car on foot. Italian news reports said a gun was found inside the car and the suspect did a Fascist salute as he was arrested, but no salute was visible in the video.

The shooting spree came days after the slaying of 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro and amid a heated electoral campaign in Italy where anti-foreigner sentiment has become a key theme. Italy has been struggling with large numbers of migrants coming across the Mediterranean Sea.

Macerata Mayor Romano Carancini confirmed that five foreign men and one woman, all black, were wounded in Saturday’s shooting spree, and one was left with life-threatening injuries. All were hospitalized.

“They were all of color, this is obviously a grave fact. As was grave what happened to Pamela. The closeness of the two events makes you imagine there could be a connection,” Carancini said.

Mastropietro’s dismembered remains were found Wednesday in two suitcases two days after she walked away from a drug rehab community. A judge on Saturday confirmed the arrest of the main suspect, identified as 29-year-old Innocent Oseghale.

ANSA reported that the black car used in Saturday’s shooting spree had been seen in the area where the woman’s body was found and also near where the suspect lived.

Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Italy would be “particularly severe against whoever thinks of nourishing this spiral of violence.”

“We will stop this risk. We will stop it right away. We will stop it together,” Gentiloni declared.

Italy is heading into a general election on March 4 and the head of the rebranded League party, Matteo Salvini, had capitalized on the teen’s killing in campaign appearances even before the shooting Saturday. He is pledging to deport 150,000 migrants in his first year in office if his party wins control of parliament and he is named premier.

That has drawn sharp rebukes that Salvini is using the migrant crisis to foment xenophobia for political gain.

Salvini’s League, which dropped the “northern” from its name in a bid for a national following, has joined a center-right coalition with Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Giorgia Meloni’s much smaller Brothers of Italy. They are running against Matteo Renzi’s much-splintered center-left Democratic Party and the populist 5-Star Movement.

Salvini told reporters Saturday at a campaign stop in Bologna that he would bring security to Italy.

“Whoever shoots is a delinquent, no matter the skin color. It is clear that out-of-control immigration … brings social conflict,” he said.

Senate president Pietro Grasso, who is fielding a small liberal party called “Free and Equal,” chastised Salvini for using a tragedy for electoral gain.

“Whoever, like Salvini, exploits news events and tragedies for electoral purposes is among those responsible for the spiral of hatred and violence that we must stop as soon as possible,” Grasso said.</s>The extreme right-wing suspect in a shooting rampage that wounded six African migrants in Italy has demonstrated no remorse for his actions and was “lucid and determined, aware of what he had done,” an Italian law enforcement official said Sunday.

Luca Traini, 28, was being held in jail as police investigate him on multiple counts of attempted murder for Saturday’s shooting rampage in the central Italian city of Macerata, with the aggravating circumstance of “racial hatred.”

READ MORE: Italian gunman with far-right ties targets African immigrants in drive-by shooting spree

Traini was an unsuccessful candidate last year in a local election for the anti-migrant Northern League party and friends have been quoted by ANSA as saying he previously had ties with the neo-fascist Forza Nuova and the CasaPound political parties.

Col. Michele Roberti, the Carabineri commander in Macerata, told Sky TG24 that “it’s likely that he carried out this crazy gesture as a sort of retaliation, a sort of vendetta” after a Nigerian man was arrested in the gruesome slaying of an Italian teenager a few days previously in the same city.

WATCH: Four migrants in critical condition after Calais shooting

The dismembered remains of Pamela Mastropietro, 18, were found in two suitcases days after she walked away from a drug rehab community. Police arrested the Nigerian suspect after finding the victim’s bloody clothes in his apartment, along with a receipt from a pharmacy where she had bought a syringe and knives that are consistent with the crime.

Roberti ruled out any connection between Traini and the slain woman.

Police photos showed the shooting suspect with a neo-Nazi tattoo prominently on his forehead and an Italian flag tied around his neck.

READ MORE: Italian gunman with far-right ties targets African immigrants in drive-by shooting spree

One of Traini’s victims, a 29-year-old woman identified only as Jennifer, told the daily La Stampa from her hospital bed that she no longer feels free to walk around the city “with peace of mind” after the attack.

“I never hurt anyone. I was talking and laughing with three other people” when she was struck by the bullet, she told the Turin-based newspaper.

One of the six victims -five African men and Jennifer – was treated and released Saturday. The remaining patients were all in stable condition, with one in intensive care and Jennifer facing surgery on her shoulder, doctors said Sunday.

Her boyfriend told the La Repubblica newspaper that they were waiting at a bus station when he saw a man pointing something at them from a car. He realized then that it was a gun.

“I gave Jennifer a push to get her out of the way and threw myself down. And I heard a shot: Boom,” said Ogie Igbinowania.

Jennifer told La Repubblica that she arrived in Italy seven months ago and joined her boyfriend in Macerata.

“I have always been comfortable here. People are friendly. I don’t know why that guy fired at us,” she said.

The shooting spree also came amid a heated electoral campaign in Italy where anti-foreigner sentiment has become a key theme. Italy has struggled with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in the last few years coming across the Mediterranean Sea in smugglers’ boats.

Italy is heading into a general election on March 4 and the head of the rebranded League party, Matteo Salvini, had capitalized on the teen’s killing in campaign appearances even before the shooting Saturday.

Salvini is pledging to deport 150,000 migrants in his first year in office if his party wins control of parliament – drawing sharp rebukes that he is using the migrant crisis to foment xenophobia for political gain.

Premier Paolo Gentiloni warned in Rome after the attack that “the state will be particularly severe against whoever thinks of feeding the spiral of violence.”</s>Italian police said they have arrested a young man suspected of opening fire on foreigners from a vehicle in central Italy on Saturday, wounding several people.

After the attack in the town of Macerata, the suspect got out of his car and made a fascist salute while wearing a tricolour scarf, according to Italian media.

He was allegedly found to be carrying a gun when he was arrested.

Six people including "people of colour" have allegedly been injured, four of them seriously, media reported.

Police said in a tweet that "the wounded persons are of foreign nationality".

The attack comes a day after a Nigerian asylum-seeker was arrested in Macerata over the gruesome killing of an 18-year-old Italian woman whose dismembered body was discovered in suitcases earlier this week.

However, no official link has been made between the two incidents.

Sky said the shooting started around 11 a.m. (1000 GMT; 5 a.m. EST), and that students were being kept inside schools which are open on Saturday and public transport had been halted.</s>An Italian gunman with extreme right-wing sympathies shot and wounded six African immigrants Saturday in a two-hour drive-by shooting spree, authorities said, terrorizing a small Italian city where a Nigerian man had been arrested days earlier in a teenager's gruesome killing.

Police photos showed the shooting suspect with a neo-Nazi tattoo prominently on his forehead as he sat in custody and an Italian flag tied around his neck as he was arrested in the central Italian city of Macerata,. Authorities identified him as Luca Traini, a 28-year-old Italian with no previous record.

Traini had run for town council on the anti-migrant Northern League's list in a local election last year in Corridonia, the party confirmed, but its mayoral candidate lost the race. The news agency ANSA quoted friends of his as saying that Traini had previously been affiliated with Italian extremist parties like the neo-fascist Forza Nuova and CasaPound.

The shooting spree came days after the slaying of 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro and amid a heated electoral campaign in Italy where anti-foreigner sentiment has become a key theme. Italy has struggled with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in the last few years coming across the Mediterranean Sea in smugglers' boats.

After the attack, Premier Paolo Gentiloni warned in Rome that "the state will be particularly severe against whoever thinks of feeding the spiral of violence."

In Macerata, Interior Minister Marco Minniti said the gunman had been motivated "by racial hatred," and had "a background of right-wing extremism with clear references to fascism and Nazism."

"What happened appears to be a completely random armed retaliation raid," Minniti said, adding that evidence indicated that while the gunman had planned the attack, he had acted alone. "In a democracy, it is not permitted for individuals to seek justice alone, even if in this case, there is nothing that recalls a notion of justice."

Authorities said the six wounded — five men and one woman — appeared to be random targets in various parts of the city of 43,000 in Italy's central Marche region. Italian news reports indicated that the gunman's trajectory included the area where the Italian murder victim was found and where the prime suspect in her slaying lived.

The identities and nationalities of the shooting victims remained unknown. Hospital officials said late Saturday that one had been treated and released, while the others had either undergone surgery or were facing operations for their injuries. One of them remained in intensive care.

As the violent attack unfolded, police told residents to stay inside and ordered a halt to public transport to limit the casualties. Such violent shootings are rare in Italy, and usually associated with the southern Italian mafia.

A video posted by the il Resto di Carlino newspaper showed the suspect with an Italian flag draped over his shoulders being arrested by armed Carabinieri officers in the city centre, near where he apparently fled his car on foot. Italian news reports said a registered gun was found inside the car and the suspect did a fascist salute as he was arrested, but no salute was visible in the video.

The tattoo on Traini's forehead was that of the Wolfangel, an ancient runic symbol that according to the Anti-Defamation League was appropriated by Nazi Germany and later adopted by neo-Nazis in Europe and the United States.

Macerata Mayor Romano Carancini confirmed that all six victims were black Africans.

"They were all of colour, this is obviously a grave fact. As was grave what happened to Pamela. The closeness of the two events makes you imagine there could be a connection," Carancini said.

Mastropietro's dismembered remains were found Wednesday in two suitcases two days after she walked away from a drug rehab community. A judge on Saturday confirmed the arrest of the main suspect, identified as 29-year-old Innocent Oseghale.

Italy is heading into a general election on March 4 and the head of the rebranded League party, Matteo Salvini, had capitalized on the teen's killing in campaign appearances even before the shooting Saturday.

Salvini is pledging to deport 150,000 migrants in his first year in office if his party wins control of parliament and he is named premier. That has drawn sharp rebukes that Salvini is using the migrant crisis to foment xenophobia for political gain.

Salvini's League, which dropped "northern" from its name in a bid for a national following, has joined a centre-right coalition with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Giorgia Meloni's much smaller Brothers of Italy. They are running against Matteo Renzi's much-splintered centre-left Democratic Party and the populist 5-Star Movement.

Salvini told reporters Saturday at a campaign stop in Bologna that he would bring security to Italy.

"Whoever shoots is a delinquent, no matter the skin colour. It is clear that out-of-control immigration ... brings social conflict," he said.

Senate president Pietro Grasso of the small liberal party Free and Equal chastised Salvini for using the tragedies to gain votes.

"Whoever, like Salvini, exploits news events and tragedies for electoral purposes is among those responsible for the spiral of hatred and violence that we must stop as soon as possible," Grasso said.</s>Italian police have arrested a far-right supporter suspected of wounding several foreigners in a drive-by shooting on Saturday, in what local media called a racially motivated attack.

After the assault in the central town of Macerata, the suspect got out of his car and made a fascist salute with a tricolour Italian flag draped over his shoulders, Italian media reported.

Six people including "persons of colour" were injured, four of them seriously, media reported.

Police confirmed in a tweet that "the wounded persons were of foreign nationality", adding that the "presumed author of the attack is Italian".

Television footage showed the suspect, sporting a shaved head, being arrested at the town's war memorial.

Police also posted a photo of the capture.

Media said police had seized a gun in the man's vehicle.

Reports named the suspect as Luca Traini, a member of the far-right Northern League party, who had run in local elections last year.

The attack comes a day after a Nigerian asylum-seeker was arrested in Macerata over the gruesome killing of an 18-year-old Italian woman whose dismembered body was discovered in suitcases earlier this week.

However, no official link has been made between the two incidents.

Italians head to the polls in national elections in March, with immigration shaping up to be a key issue.

The Northern League is part of a populist coalition tipped to do well.

According to opinion polls, the alliance between ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (Go Italy), the post-fascist Fratelli d'Italia (Italian Brothers) and the Northern League leads with more than 35 percent ahead of the March 4 vote.</s>Share this article with Google Plus

The extreme right-wing suspect accused of targeting migrants in a drive-by shooting in Italy has shown ‘no remorse’ police said.

A lone gunman opened fire in the central city of Macerata on Saturday wounding five men and one woman, all African migrants.

Police chief Colonel Michele Roberti said that after his arrest, suspect Luca Traini seemed ‘lucid and determined, aware of what he had done’.

The Carabinieri commander of Macerata also told Sky TG24 that Traini showed no remorse after the two-hour shooting spree.

Colonel Roberti said: ‘It’s likely that he carried out this crazy gesture as a sort of retaliation, a sort of vendetta’ after a Nigerian man was arrested in the gruesome killing of an Italian teenager a few days before the attack in the same city.

He said investigators had determined there was no connection between 28-year-old Traini and the victim, Pamela Mastropietro.

Traini has been kept in custody as police investigate.

They say they believe the shooting rampage was motivated by racial hatred.

Authorities ordered public transport halted and that students be kept inside schools, which are open on Saturdays, as news of the shooting broke.

Video posted by the newspaper il Resto di Carlino showed what appeared to be a body on the ground on a shopping street.

It comes amid a heated electoral campaign in Italy where anti-foreigner sentiment has become a key theme.

The head of the anti-migrant Northern League, Matteo Salvini, has capitalised on the killing in campaign appearances, and is pledging to deport 150,000 migrants in his first year in office if his party wins control of parliament and he is named premier.
A shooting in Macerata, Italy, leaves six African immigrants wounded. The suspect is arrested and the case is being treated as a racially motivated crime.