Businessman and media proprietor
Carlo De Benedetti went on trial in Cuneo Tuesday for calling
anti-migrant former interior minister and nationalist league
party leader Matteo Salvini an anti-semite.
The former liberal La Repubblica daily publisher, who last year
set up a small new left-leaning newspaper called Domani
(Tomorrow), called Salvini "the worst, anti-semitic and
xenophobic" at a media and new media conference at Dogliani near
Cuneo in May 2018, when Salvini had just started a stint as
minister marked by closing ports to NGO run migrant rescue
ships.
De Benedetti, 86, and Salvini, 48, were not present at Tuesday's
first hearing in the case.
Salvini's lawyers said their client was busy with the Senate
defence committee but will show up for the next hearing at the
end of June.
De Benedetti, scion of a wealthy Jewish family, is a longtime
foe of former premier and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, one of
Salvini's main political allies.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
