Ex-minister, wife probed

2009-10-22 12:04

Rome - Prosecutors have placed a former justice minister and his wife under investigation for alleged abuse of office, reports said, a year after a related probe forced the minister to resign and helped bring down Romano Prodi's government.

Clemente Mastella and wife Sandra Lonardo were among 63 people placed under investigation in a probe over alleged political favouritism in the awarding of jobs at the environmental agency of Italy's southern Campania region, the Ansa and Apcom news agencies reported.

Mastella, a European parliamentarian, has denounced the probe as a conspiracy and denied any wrongdoing. Lonardo, a Campania regional official, has insisted on her innocence and said she would fight "like a lioness" to be cleared, the reports said.

"I'll say it loud and clear: I've never taken a lira," Mastella was quoted as saying by the La Stampa newspaper. "Maybe I wasn't paying attention when Parliament decided that recommending someone for a job became a crime."

Mastella resigned as Prodi's justice minister in January 2008 after Lonardo was placed under house arrest as part of an ongoing corruption probe into the health care system in Caserta, near Naples. Prosecutors said at the time that Lonardo was part of a web of corruption "deeply rooted in the political, administrative and judicial fields" of the region.

Mastella accused prosecutors of a politically-motivated witch hunt and both denied wrongdoing. Nevertheless, Mastella resigned to deal with the case and yanked his small centrist Udeur party from Prodi's already shaky centre-left coalition.

The government collapsed the following week after only 20 months in power.

In the current case, Lonardo has been ordered to leave the region pending the completion of the investigation, news reports said.

- AP