Italy's Prodi denies wrongdoing after media report

ROME, July 13 (Reuters) Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, reacting to a media report he was under investigation for possible abuse of office, said today he had not been notified and that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Prodi issued the statement after the Website of Panorama news weekly said magistrates had added his name to a preliminary list of people being investigated for abuse of office as part of a probe into possible misuse of European Union funds.

To be put under investigation in Italy does not necessarily imply any wrongdoing.

''I have just learned from the Panorama Web site that I have been added to a list of names (of people) under investigation by magistrates (in the southern city of Catanzaro),'' he said, adding that he had not been told directly of any inquiry.

Prodi said he had ''total trust'' in the Italian magistrates and said if he is eventually informed formally, it would allow him ''to show my total innocence in any eventual accusation''.

Under Italian judicial procedure people who are put under investigation must receive formal notice when the investigation enters a secondary phase in order to prepare their defence.

Panorama, the news magazine on whose Web site the report first appeared, is owned by the family of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, Prodi's political nemesis.

Luigi De Magistris, the magistrate in southern Italy who has been leading a complex probe into misuse of EU funds and other offences, could not be reached for comment.

But the head magistrate of the same office told Italy's Ansa news agency he was not aware that Prodi's name had been put on the list of those subject to investigation.

The details of the possible accusations against Prodi, who has been prime minister since May 2006, were not clear.

According to media reports, De Magistris has been investigating a number of people on suspicion of fraud and other crimes related to the procurement and use of EU funds.

Some are reportedly members of a secret Masonic lodge based in San Marino, a tiny hilltop sovereign republic in central Italy with an independent banking system. Secret associations are illegal in Italy.

Some of those said to be under investigation include a former foreign affairs adviser to Prodi and the former adviser's son, according to the reports.

REUTERS SR RAI0000