(ANSA) - Rome, October 4 - Seven members of the Spada mafia clan were sentenced to a total of 50 years in jail for running rackets at the Roman port town of Ostia Wednesday. The convicted men are Massimiliano Spada (13 years and 8 months), Ottavio Spada (5 years), Davide Cirillo (6 years and 4 months), Mirko Miserino (6 years and 4 months), Maria Dora Spada (7 years and 4 months), Massimo Massimiani (11 years) and Manuel Granato (6 and a half years).

They were found guilty of threats, violence, forecd evictions from council housing and a kneecapping to affirm the supremacy of the clan.

Rome prosecutors had asked for almost 100 years in jail.

Those convicted will have to pay damages to the city of Ostia, which was dissolved for mafia infiltration, and the Lazio region, judicial sources said.

In June last year a Rome court handed down 10 convictions in another Ostia mafia case involving two families but the crime of mafia association was judged not to have been proven, unlike in today's case.

This past June Italian police made 21 arrests on the Roman coast in connection with a suspected drugs ring operating between Ostia, Rome and Barcelona.

Police hailed the "brilliant" results of a two-year operation while Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi said "we're going to get the mafia out of Roman coastal towns".

Police said they had managed to thwart an ambush by the Spada mafia clan on one of its rivals in a turf war.

