Culture Undersecretary Vittorio Sgarbi
is being investigated for the alleged self-laundering of
cultural assets, Macerata Giovanni Fabrizio Narbone said on
Tuesday.
The statement was made after daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano
reported that Sgarbi, a volatile art critic, was being probed
over a work by Baroque painter Rutilio di Lorenzo Manetti that
was stolen from Castello di Buriasco, in Piedmont, in 2013.
The report said the painting allegedly reappeared in Lucca in
2021 in the guise of of a newly discovered work belonging to
Sgarbi.
The undersecretary says he was innocent on Tuesday.
"I have not had a notification of an investigation," Sgarbi
said.
"I don't know how I could be investigation for a theft I have
not done and for a crime committed 11 years ago in circumstances
not cleared by investigators at the time.
"It is the umpteenth defamation. Il Fatto Quotidiano is lying
again".
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