Italy Targets Ex-Prime Minister Craxi in Probe of Milan Payoff Scandal

In Italy, one bombshell follows another in the tumult of a political system unraveling after nearly half a century: magistrates Tuesday formally notified Bettino Craxi, the former prime minister and besieged Socialist Party leader, that he was a target of investigation in an ever-growing Milan payoff scandal.

On Monday, Craxi’s party, a key partner in the ruling coalition, was humiliated in local elections dominated by a right-wing party, the Lega Nord, that wants to divide Italy into three pieces.

In a summons obviously withheld until after the vote, Milan investigators on Tuesday delivered their chilling notification to Craxi, 58, who for many is the personification of the spoils-system arrogance of a political Establishment increasingly rejected by voters.

Designer dressed--as ever--up to his sculptured eyeglass frames, Craxi dismissed the magistrates’ summons with trademark scorn: “The initiative is totally without foundation, a true aggression against my person with aims that may be political but have nothing to do with justice.”

Tuesday’s notification is a legal step that advises a citizen that he appears to be involved in a crime under investigation; it does not necessarily accuse him of wrongdoing. As a member of Parliament, Craxi has immunity from arrest. But that protection could be lifted if charges are brought, as happened in the case of fellow Socialist and former Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis, also under investigation in the payoff scandals.

The prosecutor’s office in Milan provided no details of the summons. But Italian newspapers reported that the investigation focuses on kickbacks of up to $20 million by businessmen to the Socialist Party.

Craxi--who has led the party for 16 years and served from 1983 to 1987 as prime minister in Italy’s longest postwar government--said the inquiry concerns matters “in which I did not participate in any way, and in which, in most cases, I lacked even indirect knowledge.”

The Socialist Party, Italy’s third largest political grouping in recent years, has been badly damaged by spreading investigations into what Italians describe in shorthand as tangenti-- incidents in which businessmen routinely paid off party officials, in exchange for promised votes and public works contracts.

Craxi is also under attack from reformers in his own party who demand he step down to allow a housecleaning.

The tangenti funds seem to have been a keystone of the financial well-being of most of Italy’s myriad political parties; big chunks of them seem to have vanished into the pockets of individual politicians at all levels.