The suspended mayor of a
northern town at the centre of a child-abuse investigation has
reportedly taken legal action against Foreign Minister and
5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio as well as against
several other people.
Andrea Carletti, a member of the centre-left Democratic Party
(PD), is under house arrest in relation to the probe into
alleged malpractice by social workers in fostering cases in the
town of Bibbiano in Emilia-Romagna.
Social workers are alleged to have coached and coerced kids
into saying their parents were abusing them so that they could
be entrusted to 'friendly' families for a profit, according to
investigators.
The case has frequently been hit the headlines in recent
months and sparked political rows.
La Gazzetta di Reggio reported that Carletti has filed a
complaint regarding 147 internet posts and emails considered
offensive or of a threatening nature, including at least one by
Di Maio.
The M5S leader posted a message about the case on Facebook in
July.
"I don't want to have anything to do with the PD," it read.
"With the party that is part of the Bibbiano scandal, with
children taken away from their families and even subject to
electric shocks and sent to other families, with a PD mayor
involved".
Since then the PD and the M5S have formed an alliance for a
new government under Premier Giuseppe Conte after League leader
Matteo Salvini pulled the plug on the first Conte executive last
month.
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