Govt backs embattled justice minister

(ANSA) – Milan, November 18 – Deputy Premier Angelino Alfano repeated Monday that the government was standing behind embattled Justice Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, under fire for calling judicial authorities and allegedly influencing them to go easy on the relative of a family friend suspected in a corruption probe. “We have already given our support to Minister Cancellieri and we repeat it,” said Alfano. A government source told the Financial Times earlier Monday that the justice minister may quit before parliament votes on a motion of no confidence Wednesday. Earlier this month she admitted to parliament to calling authorities regarding Giulia Ligresti, a member of a major Italian business dynasty who was arrested in July for alleged involvement in cooking the books at the Fonsai insurance group.

But she denied influencing her release from jail to house arrest, and insisted it was to look after her health, as she had a history of depression and anorexia. There have been increasingly vocal calls from within Premier Enrico Letta’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) for it to join the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in calling for Cancellieri to be removed after new reports of phone conversations with the Ligresti family emerged. On Friday, Italian daily La Repubblica cited leaked police reports which showed Cancellieri and her husband maintained telephone contact with Ligresti’s uncle Antonino. Antonino’s brother is Giulia’s father Salvatore Ligresti, the family patriarch and former honorary chairman of Fonsai, who is also under house arrest along with two former executives from the insurance company. Cancellieri says she consulted Antonio, a doctor, for medical advice. The minister’s son, Piergiorgio Peluso, is a former manager at the insurance group and received a whopping five-million-euro severance payoff after a short spell there. Cancellieri’s detractors says it is a case of people with friends in high places receiving better treatment from the Italian justice system than ordinary people.