Former headline-grabbing
prosecutor turned leftist politician Luigi de Magistris got his
job as Naples mayor back pending an appeal to Italy's top court
Thursday.
"I'm overcome with emotion," de Magistris said.
"This is a long-awaited decision", said the mayor, who
denies all wrongdoing in an abuse-of-power case stemming from
his former career.
De Magistris said he would continue to be "a mayor in the
streets" and dubbed the affair "surreal".
"Over the last month I have been almost exclusively in the
streets," he said.
"That has regenerated me and will mark a watershed in the
way I'll perform my duties over the coming months.
"It's better to be among the people than in the palazzi of
power," de Magistris said.
However, soon afterward he took back his old seat at city
hall, presiding over a session that dealt with "sundry
business", local sources said.
De Magistris returned to provisional power after the
Campania Regional Administrative Court (TAR) referred his
suspension to the Constitutional Court, restoring him to office
pending the outcome.
De Magistris was suspended October 1 after receiving a
suspended 15-month sentence for abusing his power to order
unwarranted wiretaps in his previous career as a
headline-grabbing public prosecutor.
He was suspended based on a law introduced during Mario
Monti's technocrat administration in 2012 designed to fight
corruption among public officials.
It was wielded in 2013 to eject ex-premier and then Senator
Silvio Berlusconi from parliament after he received a suspended
four-year sentence for tax fraud.
De Magistris is currently the target of a fresh probe into
tampering with the America's Cup which took place in the
southern Italian city last year.
News that his appeal was ruled admissible was greeted with
applause and shouts of joy at his office in city hall, where
councillors crowded to congratulate him.
The head of the Campania TAR, Cesare Mastrocola, said "it
was an enormous task, given the complexity of the issues before
us".
When he was suspended, de Magistris said Italy is a "sick
democracy" and there is "a long way to go to stop it becoming a
regime".
He voiced the hope he would serve a suspension of "just 3-4
months", until his appeal verdict comes out, instead of the
longest term possible, 18 months.
He reiterated he had no intention of resigning.
The former prosecutor, convicted of ordering unauthorised
wiretaps of politicians including former premier Romano Prodi,
claimed justice had been hasty in his case.
"They served the order to (Raimondo) Pasquino, (president
of the Naples city council assembly), when he was in his pyjamas
last night.
"What did they think, that I was going to try to escape?".
De Magistris said the sentence was part of a plot to
wrestle control of Naples from him.
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