Charity President Cashed in on Baby Collections

Anyone who starts the day with a cappuccino at the corner bar knows the feeling: you are about to pocket your change when you see those eyes staring out at you from a collection box on the counter - the trusting eyes of a sick child from a developing nation. A notice on the box implores you to use your spare centesimi to help give him or her a costly but life-transforming operation.

Every day, tens of thousands of well-meaning, child-loving Italians give in to such entreaties. But their numbers could be about to dwindle following news that a prosecutor in Milan is seeking to jail three executives of one of the best-known such charities for misappropriation on a grand scale.

A court was told that investigators were unable to put a figure on the amount that had been embezzled, but that it was far more than the €1m (£680,000) found by the taxman. The cash allegedly misappropriated included €54,000 that went on a Mercedes, €34,000 spent on a Mitsubishi, and substantial sums given to three South American women whom the president of the charity was said to have met in a nightclub.

The Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that, when they became full, the collection boxes distributed by L'Amore del Bambino (The Love of a Child) were picked up and taken straight to the house of the president, Marino Antonetti. According to Ansa news agency, the awkward small change was allegedly swapped for notes either at the Bank of Italy or by the obliging manager of a disco.

L'Amore del Bambino, a registered charity, had been collecting money for 10 years before it was raided by police last October. It claimed to be spending the cash on urgently needed orthopaedic surgery.

The court heard that five children had indeed been flown to the US for operations, but the prosecution said this was "unavoidable for the survival of the association". The judges were hearing an appeal by prosecutors against the verdict of a lower court.

In a judgment issued last month, but only reported yesterday, they upheld the appeal, but ruled that the defendants could not be jailed until after a further appeal by their lawyers.