ROME, August 14, 2008 (AFP) - Forty-two suspected mafiosi will go on trial in October following a probe into a feud between southern Italian mafia clans marked by last year's 'Duisburg massacre,' court sources said on Thursday.

Anti-mafia prosecutors in Reggio de Calabria had wanted to put a total of 58 suspects on trial in the case, including nine people still at large, on charges of criminal association, homicide and illegal arms possession.

Judge Concettina Garrefa ruled on Thursday that 42 of them would go on trial from October 20 under an 'abbreviated procedure,' which does not require evidence to be reviewed in court and slashes prison terms for those convicted.

Garrefa was to decide the fate of the others later in the day, deputy prosecutor Nicola Gratteri told AFP.

Six members of a clan of the 'Ndrangheta mafia were gunned down outside a pizza restaurant in Duisburg, western Germany, on August 15, 2007.

The feud between the Pelle-Vottari and Nirta-Strangio clans had already claimed more than a dozen lives since 1991, and the Reggio de Calabria prosecutors' investigation had begun in 2006.

About 40 members of the two clans were arrested in a major dragnet two weeks after the Duisburg massacre, which Italian police linked to the vendetta.

The main suspect in the killings, Giovanni Strangio, is among the 58 accused. He is at large and denies any involvement.

Prosecutors say he is wanted only for criminal association.