Rome's city councillor for garbage Paola Muraro on Monday announced she is suing Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi for slander over remarks he made linking her to organised criminal infiltration of waste management contracts in the capital.
"To cast aspersions on a person or to make false claims is defamation in our view," said Muraro's lawyer Alessio Palladino.
The announcement came after Renzi criticised Rome's new grassroots mayor Virginia Raggi's judgement in appointing Muraro, who is in under investigation for links to the city's so-called 'ecomafia'and reportedly for abuse of office.
"Just imagine if Muraro belonged the Democratic Party," Renzi told a group of young members of his ruling center-left party on Sunday.
"Raggi has assigned the management of the city's garbage to a woman who is wholly linked to Mafia Capital," he said referring to the ongoing criminal probe of criminal gangs who have been profiting from Rome's lucrative public waste disposal contracts.
Muraro has been under investigation since April on various charges stemming from her 12-year tenure as a highly paid consultant at Rome's municipal garbage collection company AMA, according to Italian media reports. Raggi has said she learned of the probe against Muraro in July.
Italian dailies Il Messaggero and Corriere della Sera reported on Friday that Muraro is also under investigation for abuse of office, together with former AMA public waste utility chief Giovanni Fiscon, who is a defendant in the 'Mafia Capital' trials.
Raggi's cabinet has been hit by a string of scandals and resignations during her first three months in office casting doubt on her ability to deliver on her electoral pledge to clear up Rome's garbage-strewn streets and leave behind years of corruption and poor public services.
