The judge rejected a request to have the case shelved.

Delmastro is under investigation in relation to revelations made in parliament about the case of jailed anarchist leader Alfredo Cospito by Giovanni Donzelli, a fellow MP for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) party.

The case concerns an alleged breach of secrecy rules, as Delmastro, who is also Donzelli’s flat mate, was the source of the information his fellow MP disclosed in parliament.

The investigation was launched after a complaint by the deputy of the Alleanza Verdi and Sinistra, Angelo Bonelli, in relation to the intervention of Donzelli on the Cospito affair.

The indictment request will be examined by a preliminary hearings judge, who will decide whether to send Delmastro to trial.

In January, Donzelli told parliament that Cospito, who was on hunger strike at the time to protest against the tough 41 bis jail regime he is being held under, had talked to mafia bosses about getting the treatment abolished.

The 41 bis regime is usually reserved for mafiosi.

Donzelli also revealed that four lawmakers from the opposition, centre-left Democratic Party (PD) had visited Cospito, who is serving a combined 30-year sentence for the Fossano bombing, in which two Carabinieri were injured, and kneecapping a nuclear company executive in 2012.

During the debate Donzelli, a member of the Copasir parliamentary committee that oversees Italy’s intelligence services, asked whether the PD was on the side of the State or that of the mafia and terrorists, sparking indignation from the opposition.

Delmastro subsequently fuelled the row by saying that the PD lawmakers had given in to Cospito’s demand that they meet other people being held under the 41 bis, including two mafia bosses, as a condition for the encounter with him.

Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said that the information was not classified.

Meanwhile, government sources have said, with regards to a criminal case “it is not usual for the public prosecution to ask for the case to be shelved” and for the preliminary investigations judge “to impose that the trial be opened”.

Similarly, “in a proceeding in which the case documents are secret, it is against the law for someone to learn from the newspapers that they are under investigation”, the sources added.

ANSA