A few days before the elections, two investigation fronts are opening up on Silvio Berlusconi in two different investigations, one by the Naples prosecutor's office and the other by the Reggio Emilia prosecutor's office.
In the first case, the hypothesized crime is that of corruption and illicit financing, and concerns the possible sale of senators which took place in 2006, at the beginning of the legislature led by Romani Prodi. According to the investigators, Berlusconi would have given 3 million euros to Senator Sergio De Gregorio to switch him from the IDV to the PDL.
Together with Berlusconi, who has been summoned by the Guardia di Finanza for an interrogation, the fixer Valter Lavitola and De Gregorio himself are under investigation.
The investigation, led by prosecutors Vincenzo Piscitelli and Henry John Woodcock, was triggered by the statements made by Andrea Ventromile, De Gregorio's accountant, who, heard as a person informed of the facts, spoke of an agreement "largely remunerated” coordinated by Lavitola to materialize de Gregorio's passage into the ranks of the PDL. The agreement, according to Lavitola himself, included the payment of 3 million euros (one to the "Italians in the world" association headed by the senator, and another two in black on his account) to De Gregorio, and also the chairman of the Senate Defense Committee.
But the famous (or notorious) letter in which Silvio Berlusconi promised the return of the Imu has also ended up in the sights of the judiciary. The alleged crime, in this case, is that of having violated the article of the electoral law on the exchange of votes. The investigation started after some complaints received in recent days by the chief prosecutor of Reggio Emilia Giorgio Grandinetti.
The PDL's outcry was immediate: Ghedini, after the usual accusations of harassment against Berlusconi addressed to the judiciary, affirmed that the "Prosecutor's Office of Naples is territorially incompetent", while Maurizio Gasparri and Angelino Alfano speak of going down "to the streets in defense justice and democratic principles at the basis of a civil society". Berlusconi's reply is also awaited, as he prepares a video against the prosecutors.
