Forza Italia (FI) Senator Augusto Minzolini said Thursday he would resign from the Upper House even though it voted not to eject him after a definitive conviction for embezzlement. "Now I'm going to send the (resignation) letter," the former RAI TG1 news editor told journalists.
The Senate rejected the ejection of the centre-right FI Senator, even though the measures had been approved by the Senate immunity panel because he was definitively convicted of embezzlement over the use of his RAI State broadcaster credit card in 2015. Some 137 Senators voted against applying an office ban on Minzolini, a friend of FI chief Silvio Berlusconi. Minzolini courted controversy during his tenure of TG1 for allegedly favouring three-time premier Berlusconi. The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) said the rejection of a no-confidence motion against Democratic Party (PD) Sports Minister Luca Lotti Wednesday and the rejection of Minzolini's ejection from the Senate was the result of a trade-off between the PD and FI. Lotti is involved in a probe into civil-service procurement agency CONSIP, where he is suspected of telling CONSIP chief Luigi Morroni there was a probe going on into the agency, enabling him to remove listening devices from his office.
The Senate rejected an M5S no-confidence motion against Lotti, former premier and former PD leader Matteo Renzi's right-hand man, on Wednesday night.
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