Ex-minister Scajola arrested - update 2
(ANSA) - Rome, May 8 - Former minister Claudio Scajola was arrested on Thursday on suspicions that he helped former MP and businessman Amedeo Matacena flee Italian justice after a definitive conviction for Mafia links.
Prosecutors in the southern city of Reggio Calabria said that they had uncovered "a network of complicity" that Amedeo Matacena "enjoys at high levels and thanks to which he was able to avoid arrest".
They issued a total of eight arrest warrants, including one for Matacena himself, who remains a fugitive, and others for the former MP's mother and wife. Scajola, a 66-year-old member of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, was arrested early on Wednesday at the hotel he was staying in on Rome's chic Via Veneto. Wednesday's was not Scajola's first encounter with the judicial authorities.
In January a judge acquitted him and his co-defendant, businessman Diego Anemone, on charges related to a shady real-estate deal involving an expensive home with a view on Rome's iconic Colosseum. The judge cleared Scajola, saying his assertion that Anemone had paid for most of the flat for him without his knowledge was credible.
Prosecutors, who had demanded Scajola be given a three-year prison term, are appealing against the acquittal. Scajola, a controversial figure, was forced to resign as industry minister in Berlusoni's third government in 2010 as a result of the scandal. He was also forced to resign as interior minister from a previous Berlusconi government in July 2002 after sparking controversy by making derogatory remarks about slain Labor Ministry aide Marco Biagi. Biagi was gunned down the previous March by the Red Brigades after being denied a police escort by Scajola. In off-the-cuff remarks, Scajola said Biagi had been a ''pain in the a**'' and that had Biagi been given an escort ''three people would have been killed instead of one''. Scajola also served as government-programme minister under Berlusconi from 2003 to 2005. Berlusconi said Thursday that he was "pained" by the arrest.
Prosecutors in the southern city of Reggio Calabria said that they had uncovered "a network of complicity" that Amedeo Matacena "enjoys at high levels and thanks to which he was able to avoid arrest".
In January a judge acquitted him and his co-defendant, businessman Diego Anemone, on charges related to a shady real-estate deal involving an expensive home with a view on Rome's iconic Colosseum. The judge cleared Scajola, saying his assertion that Anemone had paid for most of the flat for him without his knowledge was credible.
Prosecutors, who had demanded Scajola be given a three-year prison term, are appealing against the acquittal. Scajola, a controversial figure, was forced to resign as industry minister in Berlusoni's third government in 2010 as a result of the scandal. He was also forced to resign as interior minister from a previous Berlusconi government in July 2002 after sparking controversy by making derogatory remarks about slain Labor Ministry aide Marco Biagi. Biagi was gunned down the previous March by the Red Brigades after being denied a police escort by Scajola. In off-the-cuff remarks, Scajola said Biagi had been a ''pain in the a**'' and that had Biagi been given an escort ''three people would have been killed instead of one''. Scajola also served as government-programme minister under Berlusconi from 2003 to 2005. Berlusconi said Thursday that he was "pained" by the arrest.