FIAT SpA's chief executive Cesare Romiti was interviewed today by

Milan magistrates spearheading the probe into the country's corruption

scandal.

Judicial sources said the Fiat managing director, who ranks second in

the carmaker's hierachy behind chairman Giovanni Agnelli, was being

heard at Milan police headquarters.

Magistrates have stressed that Romiti is not under suspicion in the

year-long probe in which more than 200 politicians and businessmen have

been accused of corruption.

The Fiat chief was being heard only as a witness who could give

important information to the magistrates, the judicial sources said.

Milan's magistrates are probing how political parties financed

themselves through kickbacks on public-sector contracts in a scandal

which has brought the country's political establishment to its knees.

Anger at the corruption was a key factor in spurring Italians to vote

in a weekend referendum to change their electoral system to a

first-past-the-post one that could revolutionise the country's politics.

Although the sources said the 69-year-old Romiti was not under

investigation, his two right-hand men at Italy's largest private-sector

company have both been accused of involvement in the scandal.

Giorgio Garuzzo, who heads Fiat's industrial operations, is still in

London after magistrates issued an arrest warrant for him on suspicion

of corruption. Financial director Francesco Paolo Mattioli was released

in March after spending a month in Milan's notorious San Vittore jail,

also accused of corruption.

The accusations involve alleged bribes paid by Fiat's construction and

truck companies. Magistrates have accused the company of operating

offshore slush funds to channel bribes to political parties.

Agnelli has admitted Fiat had been sucked into the system of

kickbacks. But he says the company, with its wide range of industrial

activities, could not be compared with those companies that lived purely

off doing business with the state.

No other major Italian company in the private sector has been hit as

hard as the car giant. Four other top Fiat managers have suffered the

indignity of arrest on corruption charges in recent months, although all

have now been released pending completion of the investigations.

But the company's legal troubles have so far had no impact on its

stock price on the Milan bourse. Buoyed by speculation Fiat is about to

strike an important international deal, the share price ended on

Wednesday at 6600 lire ($4.30), just 20 lire (13 cents) short of a

two-year high set recently.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Giuliano Amato launched a passionate appeal

for honesty in politics today as yet more allegations of Mafia ties

rocked his moribund government.

''Italy needs an irrevocable commitment to clean democracy,'' he told

a packed chamber in his last big parliamentary speech as leader of the

country's 51st post-war government.

''It needs a government that works -- one which has made a clear break

with the past,'' he added.

Amato has already announced his scandal-tainted administration is

finished and is expected to hand his resignation to President Oscar

Luigi Scalfaro tomorrow.

His four-party coalition was finally crushed by Italy's worst

political scandal which swept away five of his ministers and has so far

led to 1400 arrests.

The government was stunned in its final hours by accusations Socialist

Defence Minister Salvo Ando had sought Mafia help to win him votes.

The charges, by magistrates in Ando's home town of Catania in Sicily,

marked the first time a member of the present government has been

accused of Mafia collusion.--Reuter.