It is starting to look like the abuse of office: Despite the filing of the Court of Auditors, the Rome prosecutor’s office wants to go after Matteo Salvini and has reopened a case that should have been closed already.
As reported by two Italian dailies, the Corriere del Sera and the Fatto Quotidiano, the thirty-five state flights that the accounting magistracy had already considered “illegitimate” but had decided to archive because they had not recognized any revenue damage, will be examined once again.
The Rome prosecutor’s office has asked for further checks on the former Interior Minister, acquiring new documents and collecting other testimonies, in forwarding the proceedings of the investigation to the court of Ministers.
The prosecutors have revived the accusations of last May about Salvini’s movements, openly accusing him of putting himself on the agenda of rallies and party demonstrations close to his institutional appointments.
The newspaper’s accusations are that the League leader used planes or helicopters from the Department of Public Security or the Fire Department and therefore had used government funding to campaign.
In September, however, the Court of Accounts of Lazio had considered “illegitimate the choice to allow the use of the aforementioned aircraft for the purpose of air transport of the minister and the accompanying personnel” but had also pointed out that “the costs incurred for this purpose do not appear to be manifestly superior to those that the Interior Administration would have supported for the legitimate use of scheduled flights by the minister and all personnel transported”.
For this reason the accounting magistracy had not found any revenue damage to be attributed to the former owner of the Interior Ministry.
As reported by the Corriere della Sera, according to the magistrates coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Paolo Ielo, the twenty journeys made with the P.180 aircraft, the fourteen on board a helicopter of the Department and the one on P.180 of the Fire Brigade had taken off without authorization.
To these accusations, however, Salvini responded on Facebook with a smiling post: “A little sweetness for you …” . And, posting his own photograph in the bar in front of a chocolate box, he wrote: “The more they attack us, the more we go forward with a smile”.