De Luca Jr quits in graft probe, father furious (3)

(ANSA) - Salerno, February 19 - Roberto De Luca, son of Campania Governor Vincenzo De Luca, on Sunday resigned as Salerno councillor amid a graft probe that has made his father furious.
    The case has embarrassed the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD). De Luca Jr called the case, which involves alleged waste trafficking, "murky and disgraceful".
    Vincenzo De Luca, the governor, on Monday said a report on alleged waste trafficking by Web news site Fanpage that prompted his son Roberto to quit as Salerno budget councillor was a "disgrace" and had been trumped up to hurt his party ahead of the March 4 general election. De Luca, a senior figure in the PD, said: "This isn't journalism, it's a national disgrace".
    "In these hours," he said, "we are witnessing a campaign of media and pseudo-journalistic aggression against us on the eve of a delicate electoral campaign, a Camorra mafia-like and Fascist thug-like operation starting with waste management." A PD supporter slapped a Fanpage reporter at the press conference called by Roberto De Luca on Sunday, sparking condemnation from other parties, with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) in the lead.
    De Luca Sr said that Free and Equal (LeU) leader Pietro Grasso's solidarity with Fanpage reporter Gaia Bozza and his criticism of "an ugly climate of tension that does no one any good" were words "to be ashamed of".
    M5S leader Luigi Di Maio responded by saying De Luca's words were "threats" and that he should resign.
    "De Luca's threats are absolutely intelerable," he said.