Former graftbuster Antonio Di Pietro on Friday announced a referendum on providing immunity for Italy's four top officials including Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Speaking after the cabinet launched the immunity bill and said it expected it to be ''swiftly approved,'' Di Pietro said that as soon as it became law ''the word will pass to the citizens''.
He said his Italy of Values party, ally of the larger Democratic Party, ''will propose a referendum because we want citizens to tell us whether it is right that those in power should not be prosecuted if they are suspected of bribing witnesses''.
Di Pietro was referring to an alleged bribe paid by Berlusconi to British lawyer David Mills to hush up details of the media magnate's business empire.
''In a normal country it is in the citizens' interests to have an innocent premier, not one who cannot be tried,'' said Di Pietro, who made his name spearheading the Bribesville probes in the early 1990s.
