Embattled Rome Mayor Virginia
Raggi on Friday said she had the "confidence" of her
anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) and had "heard from"
its leader Beppe Grillo over a controversial assurance policy
made out to her by her former cabinet chief Salvatore Romeo.
Raggi joked Grillo told her "he's going to make out policies
for everyone."
Raggi had said after emerging from eight hours of questioning
by Rome prosecutors Thursday night that she knew "nothing" about
the 30,000-euro assurance policy written out in her name by
Romeo six months before she hired him.
On Friday she reiterated; "I knew nothing about it".
"These policies can be made out without informing the
beneficiary, they don't have to be counter-signed," she said.
Asked if she felt like ex-minister Coaudio Scajola who was
bought a flat "unbeknownst to him", she reiterated "these
policies can be done without the beneficiary knowing".
Raggi was questioned Thursday in a separate probe in which
she is suspected of abuse of office for appointing Renato Marra,
brother of her former right-hand man Raffaele Marra, as Rome
tourist chief.
"I cleared everything up," Raggi said as she emerged Thursday
night.
"I'm going ahead," she said.
Romeo wrote out the policy before he got his highly paid job
as cabinet chief and there have been suggestions that this was a
quid-pro-quo for the assurance policy.
But observers have said the mayor would surely not have been
naive enough to take a bribe that would have been so easily
proven.
Raffaela Marra, former Rome personnel chief, was arrested in
December in a separate corruption probe. Both Marra brothers
have been sacked from their jobs.
Raggi said Friday "I still feel part of the 5-Star Movement
and I'm not at all thinking of resigning."
Romeo told ANSA on the phone "for now I'm not talking, I'm
organising a defence".
Democratic Party Rome caucus leader Michela Di Biase said
Raggi should "come to the council chamber and explain" the
controversial assurance policy , "or else resign!"
She said "Mayor Raggi should weigh whether she is able to
govern the city".
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