PD to sue Raggi for defamation (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, October 3 - The Democratic Party (PD) is suing Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) for defamation for remarks in which she linked Premier Matteo Renzi's center-left party to Mafia Capitale, a ring of gangsters, businessmen and politicians that muscled in on lucrative Rome city contracts. "The practice of insults and lies on the part of M5S representatives has been ongoing for a while," said PD Treasurer Francesco Bonifazi. "Political debate is one thing, defamation quite another," he said.
    The announcement came after Raggi tweeted Sunday that unlike Renzi's party, the M5S was never in business with the Capital Mafia crime ring. "We're not the PD after all. The people of Rome know they (the PD) created that system (Capital Mafia). We fight it," Raggi tweeted, adding a picture of a giant octopus symbolizing the mafia hovering over Rome.
    after Renzi took aim at he called "the M5S's double moral standards".
    "Raggi put trash management in the hands of a woman who is totally linked to Capital Mafia," he said on Sunday in reference to the Rome cabinet member for the environment, Paola Muraro, who is under investigation for alleged misconduct during her 12-year tenure as a highly-paid consultant at Rome's AMA trash company.
    Renzi argued this shows that the M5S was not the break from the past it claims to be. Earlier on Monday, Muraro said through her lawyer that she is suing the premier for linking her name to the Capital Mafia case.