ROME-Anti-Mafia Police arrested former Interior minister Claudio Scajola Thursday for allegedly helping a Mafia-tainted businessman, Amedeo Matacena, flee to Dubai.

 Minister of Interior in Silvio Berlusconi’s last government, Scajola was staying at a luxurious hotel on chic Via Veneto when he was captured by the Reggio Calabria police on suspicion of having aided Amadeo Matacena, also a Forza Italia member, escape the law and flee to the Gulf. Matacena had absconded for a month in August 2013, and was subsequently discovered by the Interpol and the investigative team of Carabinieri from Reggio Calabria, in Dubai.

 “Amedeo Matacena enjoyed, and still does, a high-level network of complicity which helped him avoid arrest,” said public prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho from Reggio Calabria. Mainly known as an entrepreneur, the absconder was son of a famous ship-owner, who died in August 2003 and is thought to have started an illicit barter of objects and people in the Strait of Messina.

 Scajola’s arrest is part of the anti-mafia police of Reggio Calabria’s investigation “Breakfast,”  a two-year scheme aimed at tracking down reinvestments of illegal capital used by the criminal organization ‘ndragheta in Italy and abroad.

 Besides Scajola, Mr. Matacena’s mother was arrested, along with Mr. Scajola’s secretary, Roberta Sacco, and accountant Antonio Chillemi, all of them accused of having taken part in hiding the truth about Mr. Matacena’s goods, and aiding his escape abroad.

 Berlusconi expressed his grief. “I am not aware of the reason why he was arrested, yet I am saddened.”  The leader of The People of Freedom (PDL) explains that Scajola was not included on the party’s list because a survey had shown that the party would have lost if he had been nominated. “The arrest has nothing to do with his absence from the party.”

 As Mayor of Imperia in Liguria region, Scajola was arrested in 1983. He was accused of extorting money in the lease of Casino of Sanremo. Freed the next day, he then remained two months in the Milan prison of San Vittore, only to be released from all accusations.