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Love-struck

woman pursues

priest Mafia

style

ROME: A Sicilian priest who suspected the Mafia was out for revenge when his confessional box was set on fire has found out his tormentor was a middle-aged woman with a crush on him.

Newspapers on Wednesday said Father Vittorio Cassella, known locally for his fight against the Mob, had his car damaged, his altar wine doctored with tincture of iodine and a death threat scrawled on a church register during months of intimidation.

Police in Capo d'Orlando, northern Sicily, finally identified the culprit as a 40-year-old woman with a "strong spiritual attachment" to the priest, the reports said.

She was not named and it was not clear what charges she faced.

"If a person is mad, what can you do?" Cassella, 56, told La Stampa. "I don't understand it...fortunately it's over now."-Reuter