League leader Matteo Salvini
on Monday dismissed criticism that he exploited a minor by
bringing a girl involved in a criminal case about fostering on
to the stage of a political rally at Pontida on Sunday.
"Who cares?" the former deputy premier and interior minister
told 7gold TV.
"(I'd have) not one, but 50 children.
"If someone steals children from their parents, they are the
criminals.
"Other cases like this will come out".
The child Salvini brought in stage was one of the minors who
were allegedly the victims of malpractice by social workers in
the town of Bibbiano in Emilia-Romagna.
Social workers are alleged to have coached and coerced kids
into saying their parents were abusing them so that they could
be entrusted to 'friendly' families for a profit, according to
investigators.
The case has gained headlines and sparked political rows
after it emerged that the local mayor, a member of centre-left
Democratic Party (PD), was under investigation in relation to
it.
The PD formed an alliance with the League's former government
partners, the 5-Star Movement, for a new executive under Premier
Giuseppe Conte after Salvini pulled the plug on the first Conte
administration last month.
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