Rome - Former minister Claudio Scajola is under
investigation for alleged criminal conspiracy and mafia
association, prosecutors in the southern city of Reggio Calabria
said Thursday.
Scajola, a 66-year-old member of ex-premier Silvio
Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party and former
industry and interior minister under separate Berlusconi
governments, was arrested early Thursday on suspicions that he
helped former MP and businessman Amedeo Matacena flee Italian
justice after a definitive five-year conviction for mafia links.
Investigators claim he tried to help Matacena, who is said
to be close to the Rosmini clan of Calabria's notorious
'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, reach the Libanese capital Beirut
from Dubai, where he is currently on the run.
Now prosecutors claim Scajola and the seven other people
against whom arrest warrants were served Thursday in connection
with the case - including Matacena, his wife and his mother -
were "the terminus of a complex and largely secret criminal
system that also operated on foreign territory".
"Together with other subjects whose role is in the process
of being established, they belong to a secret criminal
organisation linked by mutual relationship to the 'Ndrangheta in
order to extend the operating potential of the mafia association
nationally and internationally," a search warrant read.
They are all being probed for alleged criminal conspiracy
and mafia association, prosecutors said.
Thursday's was not Scajola's first encounter with the
judicial authorities.
In January a judge acquitted him and his co-defendant,
businessman Diego Anemone, on charges related to a shady
real-estate deal involving an expensive home with a view
on Rome's iconic Colosseum.
The judge cleared Scajola, saying his assertion that
Anemone had paid for most of the flat for him without his
knowledge was credible.
Prosecutors, who had demanded Scajola be given a
three-year prison term, are appealing against the acquittal.
Scajola was forced to resign as industry minister in
Berlusoni's third government in 2010 as a result of the scandal.
He was also forced to resign as interior minister in July
2002 after sparking controversy by making derogatory remarks
about slain labor ministry aide Marco Biagi.
Biagi was gunned down the previous March by the Red
Brigades after being denied a police escort by Scajola.
In off-the-cuff remarks, Scajola said Biagi had been a
"pain in the a**" and that had Biagi been given an escort
"three people would have been killed instead of one".
Scajola also served as government-program minister under
Berlusconi from 2003 to 2005.
Berlusconi said Thursday that he was "pained" by the
arrest.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
