Deputy Premier and Interior
Minister Matteo Salvini said Wednesday that there was no
question of his League party having any links to the mafia.
"Never put my name or that of the League next to the mafia,"
Salvini said when asked about calls from his government
coalition partners for Transport Undersecretary Armando Siri to
resign.
"Those who talk about the League should wash their mouths out
because we have got nothing to do with the mafia".
Salvini has so far stood by Siri, a League member, who says
he has done nothing wrong.
Prosecutors suspect that Siri allegedly received money to
modify a norm to be inserted into the 2018 DEF economic
blueprint which would have favoured funding for firms operating
in the renewable energy sector.
The norm was never approved.
Siri is suspected of having tried to favour a wind farm
entrepreneur linked to Cosa Nostra and accused of helping the
Sicilian mafia's number one fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro, Vito
Nicastri, in exchange for a 30,000 bribe, prosecutors said.
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