The mother-in-law of Italy's only
black MP and its foremost migrant day labourer rights activist
is under investigation for aggravated fraud in connection with
two farm cooperatives she runs at Latina south of Rome, judicial
sources said Monday.
Until now Marie Therese Mukamitsindo, mother-in-law of
42-year-old Ivorian-born migrant activist Aboubakar Soumahoro,
had been probed on suspicion of embezzling funds the
cooperatives received from authorities for migrant workers,
leaving them unpaid.
On Sunday cooperative workers said they had been "fooled" by
Soumahoro, who has suspended himself from his Green-Left party
although he himself is not under investigation in the probe.
Soumahoro has also defended his wife, also not under
investigation, after pictures of her wearing designer clothes
and accessories came out.
He said that the woman, Liliane Murekatete, enjoyed "the right
to fashion".
Soumahoro, a hero to many, became Italy's only current black MP
after the September 25 general election where he was
'parachuted' into a safe Green-Left seat at Modena in
Emilia-Romagna.
He turned up for the first parliamentary session in muddy
wellies to highlight the continued plight of the labourers whose
rights he has been defending for over a decade.
Police in Latina, a city founded by Mussolini after he reclaimed
the Pomptine Marshes in the 1930s, are going through documents
on funding and grants for the two cooperatives run by
Mukamitsindo.
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