Officials of Air Malta are among the people wanted for interrogation by the Italian Courts following the bankruptcy of Azzurra, Air Malta’s former Italian subsidiary.
An Italian prosecution team from Busto Arsizio is conducting an inquiry into the bankruptcy of Azzurra Air, which was declared bankrupt on 21 July 2004.
The bankruptcy has left 500 persons without work and a deficit of around e80 million.
The inquiry is being led by Sabrina Ditaranto, the prosecutor of Busto, and 24 “avvisi di garanzia” have been issued. The former president of the Administration Council of the company, Fausto Capalbo and the former administrator Mario Salmonella have been arrested and are being charged with false balance sheets and fraudulent bankruptcy.
The Italian investigating team is looking into the mysterious disappearance of funds which seem to have vanished after the British company Seven Group took over Air Malta’s shareholding in Azzurra.
But according to the investigators, as reported by news service Apcom, the Maltese company is being held responsible for having brought down the net assets of the company through “particularly high contracts”, which Azzurra had to pay to companies linked to Air Malta, from as far back as December 2000.
The inquiry is still ongoing.
The regional secretary of the trade union Fit-Cisl Lombardia, Dario Bellotta, commented that this most recent intervention by the court on a national airline is another proof that there is a lack of private entrepreneurship in a sector still ridden by the monopoly of State subsidies, as is the case with Alitalia.
“State subsidies to flag companies must be removed to permit the birth of a new entrepreneurial style of business. Otherwise there is no other way to stop improvised and undercapitalised companies from being born. This is one of the causes of a grave crisis in a sector which cannot find autonomous space for development, so much so that Italy is the European country with the most airports and the least number of passengers in proportion to the population.”