A Milan magistrate on Thursday renewed accusations of political "complicity" in a failed bank takeover bid which generated an international scandal and cost former Bank of Italy governor Antonio Fazio his job.
Explaining the reasons for a June plea bargain sentence involving small northern bank Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI), Magistrate Clementina Forleo said BPI's 2005 move on another Italian lender, Banca Antonveneta, had been "in defiance of all market rules and with the complicity of members of the institutional world".
She did not provide any names.
In her June ruling, Forleo fined BPI and its Swiss subsidiary BPL Suisse one million euros and forced them to pay 94 million euros in compensation.
She said the hefty compensation sum "constituted the profit deriving from the crimes committed in BPI's interests and to its advantage".
Prosecutors have asked that former BPI chief Gianpiero Fiorani and 67 others including Fazio be sent to trial over the takeover bid.
Other high-profile names on the indictment request list are financier Emilio Gnutti, former Unipol chairman Giovanni Consorte, real estate tycoon Stefano Ricucci and Senator Luigi Grillo, a member of opposition chief Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.
The 68 face charges ranging from price-fixing and insider trading to embezzlement and hindering the work of market regulators.
Judge Luigi Varanelli is expected to rule on the trial request in the autumn.
Fazio is accused of helping Fiorani, a close family friend, to outdo foreign rival Dutch bank ABN Amro for Antonveneta, a bank whose market value ($9.8 billion) was more than three times that of BPI.
ABN Amro eventually prevailed after Italian judicial probes blocked the BPI operation.
Fazio, 70, stepped down in disgrace at the end of 2005 after he was placed under investigation for insider trading.
His reputation was badly tarnished after published transcripts of wiretaps ordered by magistrates appeared to show that he and his wife worked behind the scenes to aid BPI and Fiorani against ABN Amro.
In one widely covered conversation taped in July 2005, Fazio called Fiorani to tell him he had approved BPI's bid. Fiorani said he was so moved he had "goosebumps" and would kiss "Tonino" on the forehead if he could.
Fazio was subsequently accused of trying to stop foreign banks breaking into the Italian market, charges he denies.
Similar accusations surfaced again when small Italian insurer Unipol sought to take over top Italian bank Banca Nazionale Del Lavoro (BNL), thwarting a bid from Spanish bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA).
Unipol's July 2005 bid foundered amid regulatory and judicial probes after Fazio's resignation and Consorte is now under investigation for alleged market rigging.
FORLEO TRIGGERS POLITICAL ROW.
Forleo rocked parliament last July when she forwarded a request to parliament asking for its permission to use wiretap information involving six politicians, including Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, in her investigations into the BPI and Unipol takeover bids.
She asked to use the contents of 68 secretly taped phone conversations between politicians and people already under investigation, including ex-Unipol chief Consorte.
Forleo said the wiretap information she wanted to use showed that at least some of the six politicians were "knowing accomplices" in alleged wrongdoing.
"The evidence shows they were not passive receivers of information which was nonetheless criminally relevant... but knowing accomplices of a criminal plan of broad dimensions," she said, referring to Unipol's bid for BNL.
Parliament will vote on the request next week.
If it grants it, some or all of the the six lawmakers - D'Alema, MP Piero Fassino, Senator Nicola Latorre, Senator Luigi Grillo, Senator Romano Comincioli and MP Salvatore Cicu - could be placed under investigation.
Fassino is the head of the Democratic Left (DS), the largest party in the centre-left government of Premier Romano Prodi, and D'Alema is DS chairman.
Latorre is a DS member and a close aide of D'Alema while Grillo, Comincioli and Cicu are Forza Italia members.
All the lawmakers have denied wrongdoing.
Forleo said the taped conversations between D'Alema and Consorte and between Latorre and Consorte showed the two politicians had been "directly informed of the criminal illicitness of the operation" and could be suspected of complicity in market rigging crimes.
Unipol is controlled by Italy's food and agricultural cooperatives which are traditionally close to the DS.
Forleo's remarks outraged the DS, which accused her of overstepping the mark.
