• The Milan prosecutor's investigation for international corruption: reconstruction of the Savoini case
  • Russian funds. Salvini: "Everything ridiculous". Di Maio: "Other than funding. Free M5S"
  • League, the Milan Public Prosecutor opens file on Russian funds. Salvini: never took a ruble

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13 July 2019 "I have total confidence in the Italian judiciary, which is the most diligent, free and effective in the world. If there is a ruble out of place I will be the first to get angry". Thus the Interior Minister Matteo Salvini answering the reporters' questions at the press conference to the Interior Ministry regarding Moscow's alleged funding for the League. And he reiterates: "Ridiculous inquiry".

With regard to Gianluca Savoini, the deputy prime minister underlined: "He had not been invited by the Ministry of the Interior" neither to Moscow in October 2018 nor to Villa Madama in the bilateral meeting with Putin. And he continues: "I can produce all the documents relating to the passengers who traveled with me. What do I know what he was doing at the table. Ask him. I am the Minister of the Interior, I prefer to deal with serious matters, this inquiry is ridiculous" . Then - urged - on the fact that "Savoini appears in many photos", he explains: "I go around with hundreds of people. What they do and what they ask in their name and in the evening I don't know. I am responsible for what enters and leaves the coffers of the League and tonight I was looking for 65 million euros and shit, I got distracted and I didn't find them ". Asked if he will sue the president of the Lombardy-Russia association, Salvini replies: "No I will complain who associates the League with a hypothesis of corruption".

Meanwhile, Savoini says he "never took any money from Russia, nor met Kremlin emissaries" On the matter, in the meantime the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte reiterated that he trusted the Minister of the Interior and that the "investigation of the magistracy" is welcome, underlining that "he does not know Savoini and has never met him personally". The other deputy premier, the Luigi Di Maio grill, this morning on the Facebook profile has limited himself to posting: "Good morning, today we wake up like this. Other than oil companies, strange foundations or financing. We are free !!! Proud of the Movement 5 Stars!

The photo published by Espresso
"Russian money to the League, the photo of October 17 in Moscow that puts Salvini's defense in crisis", states L'Espresso, which on its website publishes exclusively the shot that shows the head of the Secretary of the Interior, Andrea Paganella, talk to Gianluca Savoini at the Confindustria Russia conference, according to the weekly. "It is the day before the negotiation of the Hotel Metropol revealed by us and by the audio", comments l'Espresso.

L'Espresso publishes exclusively the shot that shows the head of the minister's secretariat, Andrea Paganella, talking with Savoini at the Confindustria Russia conference. The day before the Metropol negotiation revealed by us and by the audio https://t.co/8WvyePnPUN

- L'Espresso (@espressonline) 12 July 2019


Kremlin spokesman: "Investigation proves nothing"
"We have seen the news in the media", "which involves absolutely nothing, so we do not see the need to comment". According to the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, according to the Russian agency Tass, responding to a question about BuzzFeed's investigation into alleged Russian funding to the League.

The reconstruction of the Savoini case



Expected interrogators in the prosecutor's office
In the coming days, as we learn, some people will be listening in the Milan prosecutor's office as part of the investigation that sees the League at the center and suspicion of funding from Moscow. The survey, born after an article last February by L'Espresso, focuses on the meeting that took place on October 18, 2018 at the Metropol Hotel in the Russian capital and the audio, published by the US site BuzzFeed, in which we hear an entry attributed to Gianluca Savoini.

At the center of the business meeting, in which six people take part, according to the Milan Public Prosecutor, a suspected corruption operation linked to the importation into Italy of a large quantity of oil that, in the words of those who are dealing, in a year it should bring 65 million dollars into the coffers of the League and thus allow the party led by Matteo Salvini to face the electoral campaign of the last Europeans.