Northern League MEP offers services to Roma in civil case

(ANSA) - Milan, May 15 - A Northern League politician offered to pay compensation Friday and perform community service within the Roma community after he lost a civil case over comments about the community on a radio station.
    Leaders of the Roma, sometimes known as gypsies, said they would consider the offer from Mario Borghezio, who represents the League in the European parliament.
    Borghezio was found civilly liable for racial discrimination and aggravated defamation over comments made in April 2013 on 'The Mosquito' radio program.
    He said that he was sorry, and would not "limit myself to a commitment of compensation but I am also available in my city to do volunteer work in the Roma camps," he said.
    His proposal is to be evaluated by three Roma associations that were all parties in the civil case, which the judge adjourned to late June.
    Borghezio was recorded calling Roma people "scum" on the radio program while advocating destruction of their homes.
    The comments came during an interview that followed a visit to the Lower House of the Italian Parliament by eight young Roma people who had been invited by Speaker Laura Boldrini to mark 'International Day of Roma and Sinti'.
    Borghezio during the radio program said that "a good percentage" of thieves "are Roma" and that their community was as suited to employment as "water with oil." Friday, he said those comments were "satirical" and not criminal.
    "In my life, when I'm wrong I always paid," he said in court.
    "Here I am ready to compensate the injured parties but I don't think I should be punished criminally," he added.
    "My only fault is that, at times, I say out loud what some politicians try to hide through hypocrisy".
    Borghezio is no stranger to controversy.
    At about the same time as the Roma incident, the Speaker of the European Parliament said Borghezio brought "shame" on the institution for his racial slurs against Italy's first black cabinet minister, Cecile Kyenge.
    Martin Schulz noted that a petition "signed by 130,000 people" had called for sanctions against Borghezio after he claimed Kyenge would seek to "impose her tribal traditions from the Congo".
    Kyenge, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has risen through the ranks of Letta's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) since she came to Italy in 1983.
    Later that year, Borghezio also denounced the "voodoo-type rituals" he said Kyenge likely believed in due to her country of origin.