Italian police are delving into the
accounts of he mother-in-law of Italy's only black MP and its
foremost migrant day labourer rights activist and union
organizer in an investigation for aggravated fraud for suspected
false invoicing 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 but believed to have had a role in the coops,
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 against gangmasters and other
exploitation 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.
The are sifting them for evidence of unpaid wages and rents,
judicial sources said.
The Italian Left and Green leaders said Sunday they were looking
closely at the probe while stressing that Soumahoro was not at
the moment directly implicated.
Left leader Nicola Fratoianni said the parties would "assume
full political responsibility" while being "unaware of any
offence" committed by their MP.
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