(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 7 - Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said Tuesday he was "perplexed" about the timing of the house arrest of Liguria Governor Giovanni Toti in a graft probe 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," he 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 the European elections, a suggestion Nordio rejected.
    Asked specifically if he believed it was a case of clockwork justice, Nordio dodged the question by replying: "I don't like cliches, catchphrases 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 restive and over-independent magistrates to heel. (ANSA).