Berlusconi Senate whip defends justice min amid grilling

(see related “Cancellieri”) (ANSA) – Rome, November 5 – The Senate whip for ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party came out in defence of Justice Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri after her grilling in the Upper House Tuesday over allegedly meddling in a high-profile fraud case with family ties. “We’re not calling for her resignation. On the contrary, we want her to go on with her mandate,” said Renato Schifani.

Cancellieri’s critics have called for her to step down over allegations that she helped free from jail and move to house arrest Giulia Ligresti, a member of a major Italian business dynasty suspected of cooking the books at the Fonsai insurance group.

Cancellieri’s son, Piergiorgio Peluso, is a former manager at the insurance group who received a whopping severance payoff after a short spell there. The minister admits to calling justice officials but only to warn them that Ligresti suffered from depression and anorexia. Some members of the PdL have compared the case to the one involving Berlusconi and a former exotic dancer known as Ruby, whom he was convicted of paying for sex when she was underage. Earlier this year judges in Milan ruled the then premier abused his office at the time to free Ruby from jail in an unrelated theft case by phoning police and telling them she was the niece of then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, which was untrue. Berlusconi got six years for coercion of police officers and one year for paying Ruby for sex. He is appealing both sentences.