Global General

Italy junior minister investigated, scandal widens

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-07-28 03:29

ROME - An influence-peddling scandal that has already cost a member of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government his job widened on Tuesday as a second junior minister was put under investigation.

Junior Justice Minister Giacomo Caliendo, together with other senior figures close to Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, is suspected of being part of a secret group which aimed to manipulate political and judicial appointments and decisions, a judicial source said.

The so-called "P3" scandal has shaken Italian politics and threatened some of Berlusconi's oldest and closest associates including Denis Verdini, a senior figure in People of Freedom who is also under investigation.

On Tuesday, the Bank of Italy said it had found "serious irregularities" in the management of a bank, the Credito Cooperativo Fiorentino, of which Verdini was chairman until he resigned on Monday.

Verdini, who was questioned by magistrates for nine hours on Monday, has denied any wrongdoing and has rejected calls to resign as People of Freedom's national coordinator.

The P3 case has aggravated tensions between Berlusconi and his estranged ally, Gianfranco Fini, co-founder of the People of Freedom, who has been in open conflict with the prime minister for months.

On Monday, Fini said that any politician placed under investigation should resign, a comment generally taken as an attack on the Berlusconi allies facing judicial probes.

CONFIDENCE MOTION

However, Berlusconi issued a statement expressing his full support for Caliendo, who had been under pressure to quit even before being formally put under investigation.

The P3 affair, which Berlusconi and other members of the government have dismissed as a media-inspired witchhunt, comes as the government is driving an unpopular 25 billion euro austerity package through parliament.

In a newspaper interview last week, Caliendo denied any wrongdoing and said he would not resign, but an opposition party later presented a no-confidence motion against him in the Senate. The motion has yet to be discussed and no date for a possible vote has been set.

Nicola Cosentino, undersecretary at the economy ministry, quit earlier this month after his name was also linked to the P3 case, becoming the third member of the government to fall over a judicial investigation in two months.

Industry Minister Claudio Scajola resigned in May and federalism minister Aldo Brancher quit on July 5 over separate scandals.

The P3 investigation takes its name from the P2 scandal of the 1980s, which centred on a Masonic lodge whose members included politicians, businessmen and members of the security services. P2 was accused of trying to set up a secret "state within a state".

Deputies in the lower house are due to vote on Wednesday on a confidence motion on the austerity package which the Senate approved earlier this month. The size of the government's majority means that it is expected to be approved.