Ex-prosecutor Ingroia probed (4)

(ANSA) - Palermo, March 7 - Former Palermo prosecutor Antonio Ingroia is under investigation for suspected misappropriation, judicial sources said Tuesday. Ingroia, now head of the Sicilia e-Servizi (Sicily and e-Services) company, was questioned this morning, they said.
    He is suspected of unduly receiving a series of reimbursements for trips as head of the regional company. Ingroia is also being probed for the severance payment he got when he left the judiciary. Ingroia responded to the news by saying "these are all old facts, already cleared up".
    He also claimed that the possible charges were being laid under a "law that has since been abrogated".
    Ingroia, 57, made an unsuccessful foray into politics at the head of a small leftist group after leaving the judiciary. A former head of a UN probe into Guatemala narco-trafficking, he has written for the Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper. He also clashed with former president Giorgio Napolitano over wiretaps of conversations with former interior minister Nicola Mancino in a trial into alleged negotiations with the Mafia to stop an early 1990s bombing campaign.
    He is currently writing a book about that trial, where the incriminated wiretaps were destroyed.
    Ingroia was appointed head of Sicilia e-Servizi in July 2013, a month after making his farewell to the judiciary.
    The agency is in charge of digitizing files.
    The appointment comes on the heels of a controversy when he decided to run for office in December 2012.
    After his disappointing foray into politics in February 2013 general elections, Ingroia clashed with the judiciary's self-governing body, the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM), in April following its decision to appoint him as deputy prosecutor in Aosta.
    The surrounding region, Val d'Aosta, is the only one in which Ingroia did not stand for elected office with his left-wing Civil Revolution party.
    Ingroia said at the time the CSM's decision to post him in Aosta was a 'punishment' for entering politics, and he later stepped down.
    In June 2013 Ingroia said leaving his work as a prosecutor was a "much-suffered and difficult decision", adding however that he could not continue to "suffer discrimination from politicians in the CSM".