(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 7 - Liguria Governor Giovanni Toti was put under house arrest on Tuesday in relation to a probe by finance police and the Genoa DDA anti-mafia directorate.
    The centre-right regional president is accused of corruption, sources said.
    The case regards alleged bribes to obtain favours, such as concessions at the Port of Genoa's Rinfuse terminal.
    Port logistics entrepreneur Aldo Spinelli was also put under house arrest while Paolo Emilio Signorini, the CEO of energy group Iren and the former chairman of the Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority, was arrested and taken to prison.
    Francesco Moncada, a member of the board of the Esselunga supermarket chain, is under investigation too.
    Moncada has also been suspended from exercising entrepreneurial and professional activities, as has Aldo Spinelli's son Roberto Spinelli and Mauro Vianello, an entrepreneur operating in the Port of Genoa.
    According to judicial sources, Toti is suspected of wrongdoing linked to the management of several business activities including beaches and supermarkets, while his cabinet chief Matteo Cozzani is suspected of giving a helping hand to the mafia.In all, a total of 10 people have been arrested.
    Toti is accused of pocketing a total of 74,000 euros in exchange for favours, judicial sources said.
    "He is believed to have worked to help businessmen overcome bureaucratic hurdles, removing red tape," they said.
    The Genoa preliminary investigations judge said "he put his pubic function at the disposal of private interests".
    News of the arrest unleashed a tidal wave of shock not only in Liguria but across Italy, given Toti's previous 'Mr Clean' image.
    Toti, 55, had been a journalist on Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset network before being groomed as the latest in a line of dauphins and possible political successors of the late three-time ex premier and media magnate, being elected an MEP for his centre-right Forza Italia (FI) in 2014 before becoming Liguria governor for the first of two terms the following year.
    He broke with FI five years ago, in 2019, and subsequently formed two more moderate small centre-right parties, Cambiamo! and Coraggio Italia, which met with little success nationally.
    He is currently in the Noi Moderati group, another small conservative party, not founded by him.
    Among the elements of the probe that have so far emerged are a plethora of gifts for Signorini, the CEO of energy group Iren and the former chairman of the Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority.
    Signorini is alleged to have been plied with jollies including free chips at the Genoa casino, Chanel bags, massages and summer holidays.
    Cozzani, Toti's right-hand man as cabinet secretary, is alleged to have grated favours to businessmen in exchange for work contracts for his brother's contracting company.
    Cozzani is also suspected of mafia vote buying involving the Cammarata clan of the 'mandamento' (branch) of Riesi near Genoa.
    As the opposition centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and leftist populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) called for Toti to resign and his deputy, Liguria Vice President Alessandro Piana, took over as the region's caretaker chief, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio led the chorus of Toti supporters who reckoned that the timing of the arrest was a little suspicious.
    Nordio said he was "perplexed" about the timing of Toti's being placed under house arrest, noting that the probe had started three years ago.
    "I don't know the facts and as a defendants' rights advocate I always think of the presumption of innocence, But I seem to have understood that it is a case of facts that date back several years and that the probe was not born today but some time ago," Nordio said.
    "I spent 40 years as a prosecutor and I rarely asked for detentive measures after years of investigations.
    "My perplexity is never on the moment that the precautionary measure is triggered via a vis the imminence of elections, but it is if I have technical perplexity regarding a measure with respect to the time in which the crime was committed and the investigation began".
    Some have suggested 'clockwork justice' aimed at hitting Toti in the run-up to next month's European elections, a suggestion Nordio rejected.
    Asked specifically if he believed it was a case of clockwork justice, Nordio replied: "I don't like cliches or commonplaces, I prefer to keep in mind the presumption of innocence." He told reporters it was "no accident" that his planned justice reforms were aimed, among other things, at giving the utmost guarantee to presumption of innocence.
    Nordio has been accused of planning to bring fractious and over-independent magistrates to heel.
    The prosecutor who helped place Toti under house arrest denied it was a move deliberately timed to dent the centre right's electoral prospects.
    "There can be no talk of a clockwork probe seeing as how our request (for house arrest) dates back five months, and precisely to December 27," Nicola Piacente told reporters outside the palace of justice in Genoa.
    "The ordinance only arrived yesterday morning and was therefore executed this morning," he said.
    Toti reiterated that his conscience was "totally clear" in the probe.
    "We are extremely tranquil", said the centre-right official.
    The preliminary investigations judge (GIP) of Genoa said Toti put his public function at the disposal of private interests.
    "On the occasion of and in conjunction with the four electoral competitions that followed one another in 18 months from 2021 to 2022, Toti, pressed by the need to find funds to face the electoral campaign, made his function and powers available for the benefit of private interests, in exchange for funding, reiterating the mechanism with several entrepreneurs", said the GIP. (ANSA).