Reformer Quits Italy's Main Party

ROME — A leading reformer resigned from Italy's biggest political party Monday to show his disgust at the country's runaway corruption crisis.

Mario Segni, 52, a Parliament member, son of a former Italian president and the architect of an April 18 referendum on political reform, angrily quit the Christian Democratic Party, which has been tarnished in a wide-ranging judicial inquiry that has uncovered systematic corruption as a means of financing parties and politicians.

In Palermo on Monday, Italian reporters said an investigation is also under way to determine if appeals court Judge Corrado Carnevale had links to organized crime. Carnevale became controversial for annulling more than 400 sentences against convicted Mafia figures on legal technicalities.