High profile figures from the worlds
of politics and business were among nine people arrested on
Wednesday over alleged corruption related to AS Roma's project
to build a new stadium in the Italian capital, sources said.
The Vice President of the Lazio Regional Assembly, Forza
Italia (FI) member Adriano Palozzi, construction businessman
Luca Parnasi and Luca Lanzalone, the president of water and
energy utility ACEA, were among the people arrested by
Carabinieri police, the sources said.
A former regional councillor for the centre-left Democratic
Party (PD) who is considered close to Lazio Governor Nicola
Zingaretti, Michele Civita, was arrested too.
Six of the suspects were taken to jail while three - Palozzi,
Lanzalone and Civita - were put under house arrest, the sources
said.
Paolo Ferrara, the caucus head of Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi's
5-Star Movement (M5S) in the city assembly, is among 16 people
under investigation as is Davide Bordoni, FI's leader in the
council.
Ferrara announced he was suspending himself from the
anti-establishment M5S.
The investigation regards alleged corruption linked to a
revision of the initial project. The revision was okayed by
Raggi's administration in February 2017 and saw the volume cut
by half.
Lanzalone was a consultant for the M5S in January and
February 2017 and took part in the mediation with Eurnova, a
company controlled by Parnasi that bought the land in the Tor di
Valle area where the stadium is set to be built.
"Those who have done wrong will pay, we are on the side of
law and order," said Raggi.
Interior Minister and League leader Matteo Salvini said he
knows Parnasi personally and hopes he is proved innocent.
Investigators said that "neither Raggi nor AS Roma" are
implicated in the case.
The probe risks holding up the stadium project, although
Roma's American Chairman James Pallotta said he does not think
it will, as the club has done nothing wrong.
But he also stood by his pledge to sell up if the stadium
project is scuppered or significantly held up.
"Roma have done everything right," he said.
"The stadium must go ahead. I don't see why it shouldn't.
"If the project is halted, see you in Boston".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
