The trial will start on March 12.
Delmastro, a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, allegedly leaked information about the case to his flatmate and fellow FdI member Giovanni Donzelli, who subsequently disclosed the information in parliament.
In July prosecutors had requested that the case against Delmastro be shelved but a judge did not allow it, and instead ordered them to present an indictment request.
At the time, the PM said it was “a political issue” as it “concerns a member of the government in the exercise of his office”.
“As I see it, proceedings involving the two sides with the judge in a third-party role means that the judge should not take the place of the prosecutor,” she continued.
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 jail regime is usually reserved for mafiosi.
Donzelli also revealed that four lawmakers from the opposition (the centre-left Democratic Party, or PD), had visited Cospito who is serving a combined 30-year sentence for the Fossano bombing in which two Carabinieri were injured, as well as 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.
ANSA
