Italy's far-right League will this week appeal the confiscation of almost 49 million euros of its assets ordered by a court in Genoa last week following a vast fraud conspiracy, a lawyer for the party, Giovanni Ponti Conti, told reporters in the northern city of Milan on Monday.
"We will appeal within the week," Ponti Conti stated.
The Genoa review commission on Thursday ordered the permanent and final seizure of all bank accounts linked to the party because the funds were unaccounted for in part ledgers.
League lawyers insist the party currently has only 5.5 million euros, which come from donations. Other funds may have been shifted abroad to avoid seizure, according to judicial sources.
The League was ordered to repay 48.9 million euros of state financing 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 of stealing hundreds of thousands of euros of public funding received by the party in 2008-2010.
A lower court also jailed the Bossis and fined all three defendants in the case.
