ROME (Reuters) - Italy's embattled justice minister rejected on Tuesday accusations she had used her influence to get the ailing daughter of a disgraced insurance magnate out of jail, but said she would quit if she lost parliament's support.
The loss of Anna-Maria Cancellieri would deal a blow to Prime Minister Enrico Letta's fragile right-left coalition, already riven with tensions before a Nov. 27 vote to expel centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi from parliament over his conviction for tax fraud.
Coalition parties said after hearing Cancellieri's testimony to Italy's Senate that they continued to back her.
The former senior police official has been under fire since reports emerged last week that she had called officials about the family of jailed mogul Salvatore Ligresti.
The Ligresti family, once one of Italy's most powerful business clans, was at the centre of a scandal involving accusations of false accounting and market manipulation around insurance group Fondiaria-SAI. Salvatore Ligresti and members of the family were arrested in July.
In her Senate testimony, Cancellieri denied having intervened to have Giulia Ligresti, the oldest daughter, freed from prison and put under house arrest at the end of August.
"I consider the confidence of parliament decisive for me to continue my mandate," Cancellieri added. With major justice legislation in the pipeline, "I don't want to be a stumbling block and I'll not hesitate to step down," she said.
The coalition parties' expression of support for her should make irrelevant a no-confidence vote called by opposition 5-Star Movement that has not yet been scheduled.
"Count on Me"
The scandal erupted last Thursday when La Repubblica newspaper printed the transcript of a tapped phone call between Cancellieri and Ligresti's wife on the day he was arrested, along with his two daughters and ex-company managers.
"You can count on me," Cancellieri said, according to a transcript of the July 17 call seen by Reuters.
The recording was made as part of a Turin court probe into the allegations of false accounting and market manipulation at Fondiaria-SAI, controlled by the Ligrestis until last year.
Cancellieri apologised for "allowing my feelings to prevail over the detachment" her role demanded in the phone call, saying she had acted solely out of empathy for an old friend.
The Turin court has repeatedly said the minister's actions had no influence on Giulia Ligresti's release from prison.
The court said she had been freed after medical tests found her continued imprisonment would have been a "danger" to her health, and after she agreed to accept a plea bargain.
(Editing by Gareth Jones)
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