Don't link League to the mafia - Salvini

(ANSA) - Rome, April 24 - Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Wednesday that there was no question of his League party having any links to the mafia.
    "Never put my name or that of the League next to the mafia," Salvini said when asked about calls from his government coalition partners for Transport Undersecretary Armando Siri to resign. "Those who talk about the League should wash their mouths out because we have got nothing to do with the mafia". Salvini has so far stood by Siri, a League member, who says he has done nothing wrong. Prosecutors suspect that Siri allegedly received money to modify a norm to be inserted into the 2018 DEF economic blueprint which would have favoured funding for firms operating in the renewable energy sector. The norm was never approved. Siri is suspected of having tried to favour a wind farm entrepreneur linked to Cosa Nostra and accused of helping the Sicilian mafia's number one fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro, Vito Nicastri, in exchange for a 30,000 bribe, prosecutors said.