Anger over Naples' refuse crisis took a macabre turn yesterday as residents awoke to find 21 tailor's dummies resembling Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and town mayor Rosa Jervolino dangling from trees and lampposts.

Anti-terrorist police from the Digos, Italy's equivalent of Special Branch, said the home-made dummies were hoisted on the trees overnight by militants from a branch of the right-wing opposition party, the National Alliance.

Many of the mannequins in the southern city carried placards bearing the words Addio a 'stu munno 'e munnezza – Neapolitan dialect for "Good riddance to this rubbish."