A Russian press agency
journalist who was quizzed in a probe into suspected Russian
funding for the League party appears in videos beside League
leader Matteo Salvini in July 2018 and while she is publicly
thanking former spokesman Gianluca Savoini, head of the
Lombardy-Russia association, who is under investigation for
international corruption.
Savoini, a nationalist populist League member suspected of
discussing possible funding from Russia, recently appealed
unsuccessfully to the supreme Court of Cassation against a
prosecutor's use of an audio tape from a Moscow hotel in which
he is allegedly heard talking about possible oil kickbacks.
On September 10 a Milan court rejected an appeal from Savoini
against police seizures of property, based on the content of the
tape, in the international corruption probe.
Savoini, president of the Lombardy-Russia association, is
heard on an audio tape taken at a Russian hotel talking about
the possibility of receiving funding from oil kickbacks.
His lawyer said the audio tape was inadmissible.
But the court disagreed, ruling that its seizure was
legitimate.
Savoini is the former spokesman of League leader Salvini, the
former intereio minister, who has dismissed the case as
"fantasy".
But the disclosure that Salvini arranged for Savoini to be
present at a Rome meeting with a Russian delegation has caused
embarrassment for the anti-migrant Euroskeptic leader.
Savoini's defence lawyers said Thursday that the audio tape
in which he is allegedly heard at a Moscow hotel asking for 65
million euros in Russian oil kickbacks is unusable.
Prosecutors said the tape made at the Metropol hotel in
October where Savoini and two other Italians met three Russians
is admissible as evidence in support of property seizures made
from Savoini earlier this year.
The prosecutors said they had seized Savoini's property
including computers as evidence in the case.
Investigative sources said there were no phone or other
contacts between Savoini and League leader Salvini.
Two out of three Russians present at the meeting where
Salvini's former spokesman allegedly asked for Russian funding
have been identified, BuzzFeed said.
Savoini met the Russians on October 18 along with two other
Italians, a lawyer and a former banker, and allegedly discussed
the funding, which was never eventually made, via oil kickbacks.
The two Russians were named by BuzzFeed as Andrey Yuryevich
Kharchenko and Ilya Andreevich Yakunin.
A confirmation of their identities came from sources close to
the investigation regarding Savoini.
Yakunin's name had already emerged and the two Russians,
BuzzFeed said, have links to "far-right demagogue" Aleksandr
Dugin and to Vladimir Pligin, a politician close to Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
Prosecutors believe that the October meeting at the Metropol
was not the first held in relation to the negotiation, sources
said last month.
Former Salvini spokesman Savoini is under investigation on
suspicion of international corruption over the case.
Italian newsweekly L'Espresso and US news site Buzzfeed
reported that Savoini and two other Italians met three Russians
in the Moscow hotel to discuss siphoning off an alleged 65
million euros from oil profits.
Salvini has so far failed to report to parliament about the
case, saying that he does not need to talk about "fantasies" and
that he has not taken a rouble from the Russians.
Prosecutors think that the operation that was allegedly
talked about never came to fruition, sources said.
The investigators have obtained a recording of the talks at
the Metropol hotel from the L'Espresso journalist who wrote the
expose'.
The conversation may have been recorded on one of the mobile
phones of one of the Italians present.
Savoini is under investigation for international corruption
along with lawyer Gianluca Meranda and former banker Francesco
Vannucci.
Meranda and Vannucci said they would not be appealing against
the seizures of property, also saying the tape that was
confiscated had no viable evidence on it.
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