{"id":26355,"date":"2023-04-27T14:23:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T14:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/italian-judge-drops-case\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T14:26:23","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T14:26:23","slug":"italian-judge-drops-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/italian-judge-drops-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian judge drops case on alleged Russian funding to League party"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MILAN (Reuters) &#8211;     An Italian judge agreed on Thursday to drop a case in which a former adviser to League leader Matteo Salvini and two other people were being investigated for alleged illicit party funding from Russia, according to a court document.<\/p>\n<p>The League is part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni&#8217;s right-wing coalition government.<\/p>\n<p>Milan prosecutors had in January asked the judge to dismiss the case in a statement explaining that they had failed to gather sufficient evidence to pursue the investigation after Moscow failed to respond to requests for assistance submitted by the Italian judicial authority.<\/p>\n<p>In the court document reviewed by Reuters, the office of Milan judge Stefania Donadeo notified the lawyers of the three suspects that a decree of dismissal had been filed on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Salvini, who serves as both deputy prime minister and transport minister, welcomed the judge&#8217;s decision on Twitter, saying he now expects an apology from many people and is preparing to sue others over the affair.<\/p>\n<p>The Milan prosecutor&#8217;s office opened an investigation in 2019 alleging the crime of international bribery after media reports that Salvini&#8217;s former adviser Gianluca Savoini had held talks in Moscow in October 2018 with Russian businessmen about a possible oil deal that would enable funds to be siphoned to the League. <\/p>\n<p>Savoini denied the allegations at the time and Salvini denied that his party received any money from Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>Salvini had been a strong supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin before last year&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine. <\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Emilio Parodi; Editing by Keith Weir)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/italian-judge-drops-case\/file-photo-matteo-salvini-leader-of-the-league-party-attends\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q0O8-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q0O8-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MILAN (Reuters) &#8211; An Italian judge agreed on Thursday to drop a case in which a former adviser to League leader Matteo Salvini and two other people were being investigated for alleged illicit party funding from Russia, according to a court document. The League is part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni&#8217;s right-wing coalition government. Milan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":26356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q0O8-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26357,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26355\/revisions\/26357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}