A controversial Italian lawmaker has blamed a recent series of accidents on a witchcraft he claimed was cast on him by the African father of a rival politician he once compared to an ape.
Roberto Calderoli, a senator with the anti-immigration Northern League party, urged the father of former government minister Cecile Kyenge to revoke the alleged spell, after he found a 2m-long snake in his kitchen.
“I’m not a superstitious person but since Kyenge’s father made the macumba [witchcraft] all sorts of things have happened to me,” Calderoli, 58, wrote on Facebook, posting a photo of himself holding the reptile.
The post caused a backlash from netizens, who accused the 58-year-old politician of holding racist prejudices, and from animal right activists angered at the killing of the animal.
The senator said the intrusive snake was the last in a series of misfortunes that he was the victim of in the last 12 months, as he said he was hospitalised six times and lost his mother.
In the last incident, he fainted shortly before boarding an aircraft and broke two fingers and two vertebras in the fall.
“Maybe it is time to send a message of peace to father Kyenge and ask he revokes the ritual,” Calderoli, who served twice as minister under Silvio Berlusconi’s government, told an Italian magazine.
In July last year, the senator sparked a storm of criticism for saying Congolese-born Kyenge – Italy’s first black minister – reminded him of “the features of an orangutan”.
He later apologised but refused to quit as vice-president of the senate.
As controversy was raging, Kyenge’s father, Clement Kikoko Kyenge, a tribal leader in Katanga, a south-eastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), demanded his ancestors to free Calderoli from “evil thoughts” in a prayer performed before the cameras of gossip magazine Oggi.
“If his apologies to Cecile were true he has nothing to worry about. If instead he apologised out of political convenience that might have annoyed the ancestors,” Clement Kikoko Kyenge said replying to Calderoli’s request he revokes the spell.
His daughter dismissed the controversy saying that as a Christian Catholic, she doesn’t believe in rituals and magic; that performed by her father was an “act of forgiveness and acceptance” and not witchcraft, she added.
Born in DCR, Kyenge arrived in Italy in the 1980s to study medicine and went on to become an ophthalmologist in Modena.
Her appointment as minister of integration – an office she held since February this year – was hailed as a big step on Italy’s difficult path towards integration but was marred by a number of racist attacks.
She is now serving as a member of the EU parliament with the 
Democratic Party.
The snake shoulda wrap round him rass neck n don’t let go lmaoooooo him lucky dem no meck him fava monkey lol
:ngakak it sweet mi bad u si
Mi seh dah 1 yah sweeter than suga, it a guh gi mi diabetes a swear, mi seh mi laff till all mi nose mi affi guh blow :ngakak :ngakak
When di guhzum lick him suh and suh…di man tek it to facebook :hammer
Mi seh like a 1 good likkle while him a try bear it out, an 1 misfortune a tek him afta another til him a seh, no sah dis cant normal a baxide a must dah African deh obeah mi, :ngakak Dont mess wid d African dem next time yuh hear ??? cauz yuh might tun a bullfrog next, lol!!! All now mi still a laff
Metsy mi say him fi just start get hairy n him hand them fi get long a dat woulda fix him bout him broke 3 finger a shoulda all ten lmaoooooooo too outta order
Damn stink it did bun mi but the woman was very classy about it a bet u him and others learn now..This a jus di beginning
Very upsetting man n was not apologetic all a now when him mouth tun back a him he will see mi no know how dem color ppl dem fi tawk bout black ppl looks cause is a ugly race a ppl dem very ugly to kmt
He should have been banned left right and center but those people in italy most a dem racist just like him…he is only repeating whey di ones nuh brave enough fi talk out loud
But all him a gwaan, him more fava monkey than d woman eh nuhunuh nuh see it to, & mi nah talk d likkle cute 1 dem, d silver back gorilla as somebody did seh inna 1 post some time ago. Him pass brite him too excellent fi my purpose what d f%$#@& him too nuh wid him face fulla hair, mi nuh know y pot must love call kettle black, dah man yah is a case all by fi himself yah!!!! smh cauz if mi look suh, mi nah call nobody nuh name!!!
Serve him right :ngakak. Now him owna mind ah torture him seh ah science di daddy drop pon him….dat yuh get fi class up di man good good intelligent ambitious dawta :ngakak
Morning ooo,
Bwoi dem seh believe kill and it cure, look like is di forma fi di ministah, Mi seh Met mi haffi run guh bathroom guh pee,wata come a mi yei mi seh..di man did tell im seh if di apology nuh sincere the ancestors not going to be happy..watah a piece a broiteness sah? bout deh class up di woman and har ape features, im mussi nevah hearddddddddd a dem!!!! Di ministah conscience a kill im caz im know im loii baddd..
Di obeah a beat him left right and inbetween
Mi seh a shoulda 1 tail him grow, brite!!!! d sinting bun mi yuh see man!!! A tru yuh nuh know!!!
:ngakak
belief**
Mi swear think him did a guh seh him a swing from limb to limb and a act like monkey. A how him 1 brite suh come a style d lady??!! A hope him learn him damn lesson, good fi him baxide!!!! Mi sorry seh a neva 1 monkey him tun inna God know(cut mi eye affa him)Damn Out orda!