No comment on Aosta prosecutor arrest

(ANSA) - Aosta, January 31 - Attorney Claudio Soro on Tuesday did not comment the arrest of his client, Aosta prosecutor Pasquale Longarini, the previous day on charges of improperly inducing third parties to give or promise money or other commodities in an investigation coordinated by Milan prosecutors.
    "We have no comment at this time", Soro said, adding that no date has yet been scheduled for his client's questioning by Milan prosecutors.
    Longarini, who acted as the city's chief prosecutor, is currently under house arrest.
    A leading cheese producer in the Valle d'Aosta region around Aosta, Gerardo Cuomo, has also been arrested as part of the probe.
    According to investigators, Longarini provided confidential information to Cuomo to help him solve judicial and administrative problems in exchange for the promise of benefits.
    Longarini was the prosecutor, together with colleague Stefania Cugge, in the investigation that led a court of first instance in 2004 to sentence Anna Maria Franzoni to 30 years in jail for the murder of his three-year-old son Samuele, a sentence that was cut down to 16 years by an appeals court and confirmed by the supreme Cassation Court.
    Longarini's attorney also worked on the high-profile case as the lawyer of Franzoni's neighbors in the Valle d'Aosta town of Congne.
    The arrested prosecutor also coordinated investigations in the early 1990s that led to the arrest of Valle d'Aosta Governor Augusto Rollandin on charges of vote-rigging and of illicitly granting regional funding to public transport companies.
    Northern League leader Matteo Salvini on Tuesday called for early elections in Aosta and in the region, saying the arrest unveiled a "rotten" scenario in Val D'Aosta.
    Speaking at a press conference in front of the city's tribunal to comment the arrest, the leader of the anti-immigrant, anti-euro party said that "crime controls entrepreneurial activities and politics" in the region.