An Italian appeals court on Monday confirmed the seizure from the far-right League of almost 49 million euros of state funds after its former leaders including party founder Umberto Bossi were convicted last year in a vast fraud case.
The court in the northwest Italian city of Genoa cut to one year and ten months the prison sentence that a lower court in 2017 handed to Bossi over the case but increased to three years and nine months the jail term given to former League party treasurer Francesco Belsito.
The Genoa court also sentenced three League party auditors to four month prison terms in the case.
The League was in April ordered to repay 48.9 million euros of state financing by Italy's supreme court after ex-leader Umberto Bossi, his son Renzo and ex-party treasurer Francesco Belsito were in July last year found guilty by a lower court in Milan of stealing hundreds of thousands of euros of public funding received by the party in 2008-2010.
The Milan court sentenced Bossi to two years and three months in jail, gave Renzo Bossi an 18-month prison term while Belsito got two years, six months in prison. The court also fined all three defendants.
A second Bossi son, Riccardo, was tried separately in the same case last year and received a 20-month jail term.
