"I am sorry. For the Romans, for the Movement and for Beppe Grillo, who had expressed doubts. We trusted and we probably made a mistake, but Marra is not a political exponent, but one of the 23 employees of the Municipality of Rome. My right arm are the Roman citizens”. These are the words of Virginia Raggi in the very short press conference convened to comment the arrest of the head of the personnel department of the Municipality of Rome, Raffaele Marra. The mayor of Rome did not answer journalists' questions and clearly said that he will not resign following this affair: “We move forward, with serenity”.
Raffaele Marra, chief of staff of the Capitol and right-hand man of mayor Virginia Raggi, was arrested this morning by the Carabinieri for corruption. The builder Sergio Scarpellini also ended up in handcuffs with him, who allegedly provided him with the money to buy the apartment where he lived, a home owned by the national body for assistance to agents and sales representatives (Enasarco). The investigation, writes the Corriere della Sera, "refers to the period in which Marra was, under mayor Alemanno, director of the housing policies office of the municipality and head of the Department of heritage and housing".
With the arrest of Marra, a dramatic week ends for Virginia Raggi and her junta. The one in which the councilor for the Environment Paola Muraro (formerly a collaborator of the municipal waste company of Rome) resigned and received a waste traffic notice ma which had already been registered for months on the register of suspects. But that the mayor had defended strenuously. Thursday, however, the police entered the Capitol to acquire the documentation relating to a series of appointments and assumptions decided by Raggine in the first months of government. The story concerns the investigation, still without suspects or hypotheses of a crime, opened following the complaint presented by the former head of the cabinet Carla Romana Raineri. In a tweet, the Grillina mayor yesterday confirmed the episode: “Searchings? Nothing to hide. I made the requested documents available in absolute serenity".
