Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi is meeting
councillors from her 5-Star Movement (M5S) on Tuesday to discuss
AS Roma's project to build a new stadium, which has been hit by
a major corruption probe.
On Monday Raggi was summoned by prosecutors for a second time
to be questioned about the case, over which nine people were
arrested last week.
Neither Raggi nor the Serie A club are suspected of any
wrongdoing.
Among the arrested people was Luca Lanzalone, the former
president of water and energy utility ACEA who also acted as
consultation for Raggi's administration on the stadium project
for a spell.
On Monday Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede, also a M5S
member, appeared to contradict Raggi about how Lanzalone had
come to have his position, saying that "we introduced him" but
the mayor chose him.
Ex-premier and former Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo
Renzi attacked Bonafede on Tuesday, with a play on words about
his surname, which translates as 'good faith'.
"It is a shame that Minister Bonafade, who is reality is
'Malafede' (bad faith) given the way he behaves, said that he
won't come to parliament to respond on the matter," Renzi said.
Luca Parnasi, a construction businessman who was also
arrested, expressed frustration at the political and
bureaucratic problems linked to project in wiretaps of a
conversation that are part of the investigation documents.
"These lot think about their political butts, they don't
think about Rome, no one cares," Parnasi said to one of his
staff members after the project was held up by a negative
environmental impact assessment.
"We have to say how things should be".
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