Probe into Biagi's death opened

Documents seized from Scajola contribute to move - sources

(ANSA) - Bologna, May 21 - Bologna prosecutors have opened a probe into suspicions officials may have failed to take action to prevent the murder of labour ministry aide Marco Biagi by Red Brigades terrorists in March 2002, ANSA sources said Wednesday. The prosecutors are trying to establish whether anyone is guilty of the crime of homicide by culpable omission. The investigation has been opened with the help of interior ministry documents seized from former minister Claudio Scajola in an operation related to a separate probe into allegations he helped a Mafia-linked fugitive former MP, the sources said.

That probe led to the arrest this month of Scajola, a member of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party who remains in a Rome jail. Scajola was interior minister at the time of Biagi's murder. Biagi was killed after his security escort had been removed.

There have been reports Scajola may have received a letter from an MP warning that the aide was in danger. Scajola was forced to resign as interior minister in July 2002 after sparking controversy by saying Biagi had been a "pain in the a**e" and that if he had been given an escort "three people would have been killed instead of one". Scajola also served as government-program minister from 2003 to 2005 and industry minister from 2008 to 2010 under two separate Berlusconi governments.

Scajola was forced to resign as industry minister in 2010 as a result of a scandal about a shady real-estate deal involving an expensive home with a view on Rome's iconic Colosseum. In January a judge acquitted Scajola in that case, saying his assertion that businessman Diego Anemone had paid for most of the flat for him without his knowledge was credible. Prosecutors are appealing against the acquittal.