ROME: The president of the northwestern Italian region of Liguria resigned today, nearly three months after his arrest in a vast anti-corruption probe involving port and beach operations.
Giovanni Toti, 55, has been under house arrest since May as part of an investigation that has also implicated nine others, including the former head of the Genoa port authority, one of the largest in the country.
Contacted by AFP, a regional civil servant confirmed media reports of the resignation of Toti, who had been suspended from his post since his arrest.
Toti, a right-wing former member of the European Parliament elected as Liguria’s president in 2015 and again in 2020, has said he is innocent of accusations of bribe-taking.
Prosecutors allege he accepted €74,100 in funds for his election campaign between December 2021 and March 2023 from two prominent local businessmen, Aldo Spinelli and his son Roberto, in return for various favours.
These allegedly included efforts to privatise a public beach and speeding up the 30-year lease renewal for a Genoa port terminal for a Spinelli family-controlled company, which was approved in December 2021.
Toti is a former journalist who was close to late prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
He is no longer aligned with a party but was backed by a right-wing coalition in the last election.
In a resignation letter published on the RaiNews website, Toti did not mention the accusations against him but instead listed his accomplishments as president and thanked his supporters.
After three months of house arrest and the subsequent suspension from the office that the voters have entrusted to me twice, I have decided that the time has come to tender my irrevocable resignation,
Toti wrote, according to RaiNews.
I leave a region in order.
Toti had more than a year remaining in his tenure as regional president.
According to the law, new elections will have to be called within three months.