Corruption Probe Forces Italy’s Justice Minister to Resign Post

Justice Minister Claudio Martelli, one of the brightest and youngest stars in the storm-tossed Italian political firmament, quit abruptly on Wednesday after being formally notified by Milan judges that he is under investigation for corruption.

Affirming his innocence, Martelli, 49, immediately resigned both from the sagging government of Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and from the Socialist Party, which has been the focus of an unprecedented nationwide corruption inquiry.

Martelli’s resignation added a new note of instability to an Italian political system that has lost public credibility. To avoid an immediate political crisis that would bring down his weak government, Amato himself stepped in as interim justice minister late Wednesday.

Martelli was a leading candidate in party elections scheduled today to replace Bettino Craxi, the Socialist leader and former prime minister who himself is targeted in six separate inquiries involving corruption and illegal party financing.

A year-old investigation begun by magistrates in Milan has uncovered an institutionalized, apparently nationwide system of kickbacks in which contractors paid off politicians and made handsome illegal contributions to political parties to procure public works contracts.

Martelli has been named in connection with a Swiss bank account, said to have been the repository of illegal funds destined for the Socialist Party, a pillar of most Italian coalition governments since World War II.

A flurry of new judicial accusations has followed the return to Italy last weekend of fugitive architect Silvano Larini, a close friend of Craxi for three decades and the reputed bagman for kickbacks to the Socialist Party in Milan.

Under interrogation, Larini has told magistrates that between 1987 and spring, 1991, he personally received and delivered “7 billion or 8 billion lire” (about $7 million) in kickbacks for the party from contractors.

There have been more than 100 arrests of prominent politicians and industrialists since the scandal broke. But Craxi has denied any knowledge of kickbacks while trying to obstruct his rival Martelli from gaining control of the party.