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.
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