De Vito 'expelled from M5S'

(ANSA) - Rome, April 24 - Marcello De Vito, former president of the Rome city council assembly and a member of the 5-Star Movement (M5S), who was arrested by Carabinieri police in March, lamented Wednesday that he should not have been expelled from the party.
    Last month, after the announcement of his arrest in relation to a probe into AS Roma's project to build a new stadium in the city and another project, Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio had said De Vito was being ejected from his M5S party.
    De Vito noted that an online vote had been held when Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini was put under investigation in relation to his refusal to allow migrants to disembark from a Coast Guard ship's, the issue had been put to an online vote.
    He added that ''our code of ethics calls for the expulsion from M5S only in the case of a party member being found guilty and not according to questionable interpretations depending on the case or, worse, the decision of our leaders,'' he wrote in part of a letter sent from jail to Rome mayor Virginia Raggi.