Minzolini hands in resignation to Senate (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, March 28 - Augusto Minzolini, a prominent member of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party, handed in his resignation as a lawmaker to the Senate on Tuesday. The Upper House will now have to decide whether to accept the resignation. Minzolini announced he would quit earlier this month even though the Senate had saved him from ejection under a 2012 law mandating an office ban in the wake of a definitive conviction.
    The Senate immunity panel had approved the ejection because he was definitively convicted by the supreme Cassation Court of embezzlement over the use of his RAI State broadcaster credit card in 2015.
    Minzolini, a friend of FI chief Berlusconi, is the former editor of RAI's flagship news show TG1.
    After tendering his resignation, Minzolini said: "I did this because I wanted to and not because other people asked me to.
    "Now I want to get back to being a journalist".