A Milan prosecutor has moved to drop an investigation into allegations that Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s League engaged in corrupt dealings with Russia over alleged sales of Russian oil.
The Milan prosecutor’s office is calling for dropping investigations into an alleged proposed oil deal between an Italian national linked to Salvini and the League, and a group of Russians dating back to a meeting in Moscow at the Metropol Hotel in October of 2018.
Gianluca Savoini, then an aide to Salvini, met with three Russians to allegedly discuss ways to funnel millions of euros of oil money to the party, according to leaked audio of the meeting that was published in 2019.
However, despite the meeting, which took place as Salvini was visiting the Russian capital, prosecutors found no evidence of corruption and none that Salvini was personally involved or tied to the meeting itself, the newspaper Il Giornale reports.
A rumour that claimed Russia influenced populist Matteo Salvini to collapse Italy’s technocratic “unity” government under Mario Draghi has been quashed by an official with links to Italian intelligence. https://t.co/XfUGD0EWCk
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 31, 2022
“It is likely that Salvini was aware of the negotiations carried out by Savoini, Meranda and Vannucci aimed at ensuring important financial flows to the party … but no concrete elements have ever emerged on the fact that the secretary of the League personally participated in the negotiation or in any case provided a causal contribution to it,” the prosecutor said.
The halting of the investigation comes after repeated accusations of Salvini being too friendly to Russia and to Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to and during last year’s election campaign.
In July, shortly after the League pulled out of the technocratic national unity government led by former Prime Minister Mario Draghi, some speculated that Salvini had been influenced by Russia to collapse the coalition.
However, Italian intelligence sources dispelled the allegations, with Franco Gabrielli, the undersecretary to the presidency of the Council of Ministers with delegation to the secret services, stating that there was no evidence of Russian influence.
“The news that appeared in the newspaper La Stampa, about the attribution to national intelligence of alleged interlocutions between the lawyer Capuano and representatives of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Italy, to bring down the Draghi government, are devoid of any foundation,” Gabrielli said.
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