Ischia's PD mayor arrested in '330,000-euro bribe' case - prosecutors

(ANSA) - Rome, March 30 - Giuseppe 'Giosi' Ferrandino, the mayor of Ischia, was among 10 people arrested on Monday in relation to a probe into alleged bribes on the Gulf of Naples island, ANSA sources said. Ferrandino is a member of Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD). Ferrandino's brother Massimo Ferrandino was also arrested along with several officials from Gruppo CPL Concordia, a big cooperative founded in 1899 and employing some 1,800 people. Prosecutors believe that CPL Concordia created slush funds in Tunisia to be able to pay officials for "favours" when it came to assigning public contracts, the sources said.
    Investigation documents allege that CPL Concordia signed two sham conventions worth 330,000 euros with the Ferrandino family hotel, hired Massimo Ferrandino as a consultant and paid for at least one holiday in Tunisia in exchange for the alleged favours.
    The investigators believe CPL Concordia executives also paid money to members of the Campania mafia, the Camorra, as part of the scam.
    They allegedly "made systematic use of a organisational model aimed at corruption that led them to make agreements not just with mayors, local politicians and civil servants, but also with members of the province of Caserta's organised crime and administrators linked to those criminal spheres", read the investigation documents, according to judicial sources. Former premier Massimo D'Alema said he had not done anything illegal after his name was mentioned in the wiretap of a conversation by a manager for the cooperative CPL Concordia in relation to the probe. "I certainly do have relations with CPL Concordia, but the relationship is totally transparent," D'Alema said. "It did not entail requests from them or acts by me of an illegal nature of any form". D'Alema, also a PD member, added that his relations with CPL Concordia had not brought him "any personal benefit". "I didn't get any presents," added the 65-year-old ex-Communist, who was premier from October 1998 to April 2000 and served as foreign minister in Romano Prodi's 2006-2008 government.
    "The publication of reports and wiretaps that have no pertinence to the judicial case that the Naples prosecutors are dealing with is scandalous and offensive". D'Alema's name is mentioned by Francesco Simone, a CPL manager who was one of the 10 people arrested on Monday. "It is necessary to invest in Italiani Europei (the European Italians foundation), where D'Alema is about to become European commissioner... D'Alema puts his hands in s**t, as he has in the past with us, he gave us things," Simone said, according to the transcription.
    In the warrant for Monday's arrests, a preliminary investigations judge said it was "significant" that CPL Concordia bought "several thousand copies of the latest book" by D'Alema and 2,000 bottles of wine from a company linked to his family.