Justice Minister Clemente Mastella is under investigation here in a corruption probe which also involves his wife, judicial sources said on Wednesday.
Mastella is suspected of conspiring with others, including his son's father-in-law Carlo Camilleri, to force Campania Region President Antonio Bassolino to appoint a member of his own Udeur party as head of a national health center in Benevento.
The minister's wife, Sandra Lonardo, was one of 19 people placed under house arrest on Wednesday, while four others, including Camilleri, where ordered to be taken to jail.
Camilleri, however, fell ill and is in hospital under police guard.
In related developments, Judge Ugo De Maio of the Campania regional administrative court, municipal policeman Luigi Treviso and Benevento Prefect Giuseppe Urbano were suspended from their posts for their alleged involvement in political favor peddling. Mastella resigned after the press leaked the news that his wife was under investigation and set to be placed under house arrest but Premier Romano Prodi rejected his resignation.
Prodi, who asked Mastella to stay on, met the minister briefly in Rome in the afternoon. After the meeting, Mastella said he was leaving the capital to be with his wife and would decide on his resignation later. ''I'm grateful to Premier Prodi for the confidence he has confirmed in me,'' Mastella said. Some, but not all, of Mastella's cabinet colleagues echoed the call for him to reconsider.
The justice minister announced his resignation in parliament where he made a scathing attack against ''certain sectors'' of the judiciary which he accused of plotting against him because of his efforts to reform the judiciary.
''I'm quitting because I'm choosing the love of my family above power,'' he said.
He described the accusations against his wife as ''stupid'' and called the measure calling for her house arrest a ''violent and unjust attack'' by ''extremist fringes'' in the judiciary. Lonardi, who is speaker of the Campania regional assembly, told ANSA she knew nothing about the allegations against her but would cooperate with judicial authorities. ''I think this is the bitter price that I and my husband, are paying for defending Catholic values in politics,'' she said. Mastella is head of the centrist, Catholic Udeur party, one of the junior members of the centre-left alliance underpinning the government of Romano Prodi.
The Udeur leader's furious remarks about ''extremist fringes'' in the judiciary won loud applause from MPs on the centre-right opposition benches. Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi, the subject of numerous probes and corruption trials, has long argued that he and his allies have been persecuted by left-leaning magistrates for political reasons. Politicians on both the left and right expressed solidarity with the outgoing justice minister and his wife. Gianfranco Fini, leader of the rightwing National Alliance, said there were ''grounded doubts'' about the wisdom of the judicial action against Mastella's wife.
