New Italian arrest

Mauro Leone, the son of a former Italian president, has been placed under house arrest over charges connected with Italy's burgeoning corruption scandal, judicial sources said yesterday, AFP reports from Rome.

Leone, 46, whose father Giovanni Leone was Italian head of state from 1971 to 1978, was accused of forgery and criminal association. He had earlier been held in a Rome prison on charges related to the running of a subsidiary of a state company which went into liquidation with huge debts.