Venice Mayor Is Arrested on Corruption Charges
The Italian authorities on Wednesday arrested the mayor of Venice and more than 30 others in a political corruption case linked to the city’s multibillion dollar flood-protection project. The arrests came only weeks after investigators revealed an embarrassing corruption scandal involving projects for next year’s Milan Expo.
Mayor Giorgio Orsoni of Venice was placed under house arrest on Wednesday morning on charges that he misused public funds from a project to build underwater barriers to protect the ancient city. Investigators also arrested a number of other elected officials in the Venice region and were seeking the arrest of a member of the lower house of Parliament.
Corruption scandals are not uncommon in Italy, but the latest arrests in Venice and Milan involve prestige projects in regions where governance is usually considered more trustworthy. Prosecutors on Wednesday accused Mr. Orsoni of directing public money for “political purposes.” Investigators also are examining whether politicians accepted about 25 million euros, more than $34 million, in bribes in exchange for awarding contracts on the flood-protection project.
In a televised news conference, Carlo Nordio, one of the prosecutors in the case, said local businessmen and politicians had established a sophisticated system to divert money for bribes, including slush fund accounts in Switzerland and San Marino. He said businessmen used inflated bills and false consulting contracts to generate payments from public funds that were then diverted to politicians as bribes.
Mr. Nordio said politicians either kept the money for themselves or used it to finance political campaigns.
“Illegal donations that were the product of a crime are documented beyond a reasonable doubt,” Mr. Nordio said.
For years, controversy and debate have surrounded Venice’s flood-control plan, known as the Moses project. Work began more than a decade ago on an intricate system of offshore dams intended to protect Venice from the rising waters that threaten to inundate the lagoon city. Environmentalists and others have opposed the project, while supporters say that the dams will provide essential protection against flooding.
The first of the 78 underwater barriers was installed last year. The barriers, housed in tanks anchored to the seafloor, are designed to rise to the surface when high waters threaten the city. The barriers, powered by pressurized air, are supposed to sink below the surface as waters recede. Last July, the Italian police arrested the president of the consortium of Italian industries charged with building the work, amid a corruption scandal linked to the project. He has since been released.
Besides arresting the Venice mayor, prosecutors are also seeking the arrest of Giancarlo Galan, a former Italian minister of cultural heritage who is a member of Forza Italia, the party led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Mr. Galan, who oversaw the regional government in Venice for many years, is currently a member of Parliament and is protected by special immunity status granted to lawmakers.
Last month, Milan prosecutors arrested several officials on charges of rigging bids for contracts in the Expo 2015 world fair to be held in the city. Entrepreneurs are suspected of bribing former politicians to obtain construction contracts under various public tenders, including a contract to build the facilities for the exhibition.
As a reaction to the scandal, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi put Raffaele Cantone, the president of Italy’s new anti-corruption authority, in charge of the Expo 2015 organization.
Italy ranked 69th out of 177 nations in Transparency International’s perceived level of public sector corruption last year.
“The way we handle large public works in this country generates bribes,” Massimo Cacciari, a former mayor of Venice, told the Sky Tg24 news channel. “Everything is centralized, concentrated in the hands of very few people and entities that do whatever they want to.”
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