Lower House Deputy Speaker Luigi
Di Maio, a senior member of the anti-establishment 5-Star
Movement (M5S), was at the centre of a storm on Tuesday after
several dailies published extracts from messages he sent Rome
Mayor Virginia Raggi over an official who was subsequently
arrested.
The chat messages sent in August were found by investigators
in the phone of Raggi's former personnel chief Raffaele Marra,
who was jailed in December in relation to a corruption probe.
Raggi, also a M5S member, had initially given Marra a
position in her cabinet office, but he was stripped of that post
after the appointment attracted criticism, including from within
the movement.
"He (Marra) does not feel humiliated," Di Maio wrote in an
August 10 message to Raggi, who sent it on to Marra, according
to investigation documents that ANSA has seen.
"He's a servant of the State. The Movement runs checks on my
people every month. The important thing is that nothing is
found".
Critics said the messages show that Di Maio was not telling
the truth when he said he was opposed to Marra.
Di Maio said at the weekend that he met Marra in the summer,
soon after Raggi was elected Rome's first woman mayor, but
asserted that the reason for the encounter was to get rid of
him.
In the August chat messages, Di Maio also said that "I don't
think that he (Marra) can remain in the cabinet".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
