Italian affair

last updated 8 January 2015

Rome

Legislators from Italy’s socially conservative Christian Democratic Party were scrambling this week to distance themselves from a colleague who was caught in a sex-and-drugs scandal. Cosimo Mele, 50, resigned from his party after a prostitute overdosed on cocaine in his hotel room. Still, he insists he is being unfairly judged. “Of course I recognize Christian values,” Mele said. “But I cannot be branded a bad father and a bad husband simply because after five or six days away from home an occasion presented itself.” The Italian parliament has been embarrassed by a series of accusations that legislators frequently use cocaine. Mele was one of the Christian Democrats who lobbied for mandatory drug testing of members of parliament.