He is standing amid bales of straw and amphorae, to the right of Joseph and Mary, who are beside the crib where a model of baby Jesus will be placed on Christmas Day.
Mayor Flavio Filoni said: “While I was walking past the nativity scene, which was set up by our tourism office, I noticed a figure which I initially thought was part of the scene.
“But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the figure moving.
The migrant, who has not been named, was “in a state of difficulty”, said the mayor, who called the police.
They arrested him and remanded him in custody in a prison in the nearby city of Lecce, where he will serve out his sentence.
“Thanks to the swift intervention of our local police, the state police and the Carabinieri, it was possible to identify this person, who it turned out was a wanted fugitive,” the mayor wrote in a Facebook post.
“A big thank you to all the men and women who uphold our security with competence and dedication.”
The tradition of setting up nativity scenes is a cause dear to Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s Prime Minister.
In a social media video a few years ago, she railed against suggestions that nativity scenes and other Christian traditions at Christmas should be considered in any way offensive to people of other religions.
“Our identity and our traditions are under attack,” said Meloni in the message.
She urged Italians to make sure they taught their children about the tradition of nativity figures, which are a prominent part of Italy’s Christmas traditions and in Italian are known as “presepi”.
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