Pressure for justice minister to quit intensifies

(By Christopher Livesay) (ANSA) – Rome, November 19 – Pressure grew on Tuesday for Italy’s embattled justice minister to resign as prominent figures spanning the political spectrum panned the government for standing beside her, a day before parliament votes on a no-confidence motion against her, fueled by accusations she meddled in a high-profile corruption case involving family ties.

“It’s a mistake to back (Anna Maria Cancellieri),” said Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi, favored to become the leader of the center-left Democratic Party (PD). “If Italy gets a new justice minister the government is better off, not worse”. Cancellieri is 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. 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 Ligresti 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, and that she has intervened in case’s similar to Ligresti’s more than 100 times.

Both Premier Letta, of the center-left PD, and Deputy Premier Angelino Alfano, of the center-right New Center Right, have vocally supported her, pointing out that prosecutors said that her phone calls had no influence on Ligresti’s release to house arrest. Her critics point to the minister’s son, Piergiorgio Peluso, a former manager at the insurance group who received a whopping five-million-euro severance payoff after a short spell there. Cancellieri’s wide range of detractors say it is a case of people with friends in high places receiving better treatment from the Italian justice system than ordinary people.

“We will vote no confidence (in Cancellieri), because the latest revelations make carrying out her mandate impossible,” said Lombardy Governor Roberto Maroni, the head of the right-wing Northern League. “I was hoping that her sense of civic duty would compel her to resign”.