Lawyers representing Venice Mayor
Giorgio Orsoni have reached a plea bargain with prosecutors over
his alleged role in corruption linked to the MOSE
flood-protection system, sources said Thursday.
The centre-left politician agreed to accept a four-month
prison sentence, the sources said, and a judge will decide
whether the deal is acceptable.
Orsoni, who is being probed for illegal financing of
political parties over his 2010 city election campaign, was
released from house arrest by a judge earlier on Thursday.
He said that he would return to his position at the helm of
the city council and had no intention of retiring.
"I have made many enemies and maybe this is the price I'm
paying," Orsoni, told a news conference.
"I couldn't know that an illegal system was used (for the
2010 campaign)," he said, adding that he has assigned
fund-raising to third parties.
Orsoni was among 35 people arrested earlier this month over
the MOSE probe, while around 100 others are under investigation.
These include former Veneto governor and ex-minister
Giancarlo Galan, currently a Senator for ex-premier Silvio
Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party, and Altero Matteoli, a
former centre-right environment and transport minister.
Prosecutors are looking at allegations a corruption scam
saw 25 million euros in taxpayers' money funnelled to political
campaigns and away from MOSE, a 5.5-billion-euro system system
of retractable dikes set to be operable in 2016 after decades of
delays.
The MOSE scandal broke less than a month after other
high-profile arrests over alleged corruption on contracts for
Milan Expo 2015.
Renzi has vowed to pass legislation to combat graft after
the case, including a move to give greater powers to national
anti-corruption chief Raffaele Cantone. He has called for life
bans for politicians involved in corruption, saying this is a
form of "high treason".
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