Colosimo says not friends with Ciavardini

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 23 - Newly elected parliamentary anti-mafia commission chair Chiara Colosimo said Tuesday she was not friends with a former NAR rightist militant serving 30 years for the 1980 Bologna bombing, although she did admit knowing him in her capacity as a former regional councillor who had talked to him, like many other officials, because he is a member of an association dealing with the social reintegration of former prisoners.
    "I do not have friendships. I simply carried out, as part of my duties as regional councillor, what was granted me and was due and that is also meeting people who have been or are detained," she said.
    "I know the alleged Ciavardini, exactly as I know very many others elected in other parties, because he is in an association that deals, as per Article 27 of the Constitution, with the reinsertion of other detainees after they have served their terms." Colosimo, a member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, was elected anti-mafia commission chair with only government votes as the opposition parties boycotted the vote after terror victims relatives called on all parties not to vote for her due to her alleged links with Ciavardini. (ANSA).