Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede said Tuesday his honour had been impugned by accusations he had gone soft on the mafia after surveillance courts released hundreds of top mafiosi to house arrest for health reasons amid the coronavirus emergency.
"My honour and that of the victims of the mafia have been impugned," he told the Lower House in a briefing about the government's alleged failure to appoint anti-mafia prosecutor Nino Di Matteo head of the prison service in 2018. Bonafede stressed there had been "no government interference" on the courts' decisions to release to house arrest the mafia bosses and mafiosi, most of them seriously ill.
He said that government decrees that have since been approved would clamp down on such releases, and would bring many of he mafiosi back to jail after reassessing their health issues.
On Di Matteo, Bonafede said he had decided in 2018 not to name him head of the prison service so he could take on a role once held by late anti-mafia crusading magistrate Giovanni Falcone.
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