Premier Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday
described the issue involving Tourism Minister Daniela Santanché
as "extrapolitical" and said it is for the courts, not TV
broadcasts, to work out.
"The Santanchè issue is extrapolitical, it does not concern her
activity as minister, which she is doing very well," Meloni told
reporters after the NATO summit in Vilnius.
"It is a very complex issue, it has to be seen on the merits
when the merits are fully known, but I think that is up to the
courtrooms and not the TV broadcasts," said the premier on a
probe against the minister in relation to allegations of
fraudulent bankruptcy and false accounting regarding the
Visibilia publishing group that she founded.
Last Wednesday Santanché briefed parliament in relation to
claims made by Rai investigative journalism show Report that
businesses linked to her allegedly failed to pay suppliers and
allegedly dismissed workers without giving them redundancy
payments that were due to them, as well as allegedly improperly
receiving COVID aid.
The claims sparked calls for her to quit.
She told lawmakers she was not under criminal investigation and
had been
the victim of "dirty, disgusting practices" by the media.
She specified that she had not received notification of a probe,
adding that she had also had her lawyers check with prosecutors
to make sure that she was not under investigation.
Meadia subsequently reported that she has been under
investigation since
October along with five other people who had roles in the
company, including her sister Fiorella Garnero and her partner
Dimitri Kuntz D'Asburgo, the former president of Visibilia
Editore.
"The anomaly is that the minister is not notified of the
investigation, but the investigation is notified to a newspaper
on the same day she goes to parliament for a briefing. I pointed
out a procedural problem," said Meloni.
She was referring to a statement issued last Thursday and
attributed to "Palazzo Chigi sources" in which it was suggested
that part of the judiciary had joined the opposition.
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