Former Italian PM Giuseppe Conte faces investigation over Covid response

Italian prosecutors have placed the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, the former health minister Roberto Speranza and 17 others under investigation on suspicion of “aggravated culpable epidemic” and manslaughter in connection with the government’s response at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The investigation, launched by prosecutors in Bergamo, the Lombardy province worst hit during the first wave of the virus, follows a preliminary inquiry that began in mid-2020 and was driven by relatives of Covid-19 victims.

Attilio Fontana, the recently re-elected president of Lombardy, and the region’s former health councillor Giulio Gallera are also being investigated over the alleged failure by authorities to take adequate measures to prevent the spread of the virus by quarantining the towns of Alzano Lombardo and Nembro after outbreaks occurred there.

Bergamo registered 6,000 excess deaths during the first wave of the virus, and prosecutors say 4,000 could have been prevented had the areas been immediately quarantined.

Another crucial element of the investigation will be the alleged absence of an updated national pandemic plan, with the country’s dating back to 2006.

Italy was the first European country known to have been hit by a large outbreak of the virus, with the first case confirmed in Codogno, in southern Lombardy, on 21 February 2020. Two days later, an outbreak occurred at the hospital in Alzano Lombardo. However, unlike Codogno, which was immediately quarantined along with nine other towns in Lombardy and one in Veneto, the Alzano Lombardo hospital was reopened a few hours after the outbreak, while Bergamo province only went into lockdown with the entire Lombardy region two weeks later.

Antonio Chiappani, the prosecutor leading the investigation, said the preliminary inquiry consisted of analysis “of a significant amount of documents” as well as emails and telephone messages involving the suspects.

The suspects will have time to present their defence to a judge, who will then decide whether or not to send them to trial.

Conte, who now leads the Five Star Movement, the party which at the time of the Covid outbreak led the government in coalition with the centre-left Democratic party, said he was ready to collaborate immediately with the judiciary. “I am calm in facing the country and Italian citizens, for having worked with the utmost commitment and responsibility during one of the hardest moments experienced by our republic,” he said.

Speranza, who remained health minister until the collapse of Mario Draghi’s government last summer, said he felt “very serene and certain” that he had always acted “with discipline and honour in the exclusive interest of the country”.

Fontana told Radio Anch’io : “It is shameful that someone who was heard at the beginning of the investigation as a person with knowledge of the facts should find out from the newspapers that he has been turned into a suspect.”

Gallera said he had not yet received an official notification about the investigation but that he felt calm and would collaborate with the judiciary.

“We faced Covid with our bare hands and, based on the very little information we had at our disposal, we made the most appropriate decisions to deal with the emergency,” he said.

Consuelo Locati, the lawyer representing the families driving the investigation, said the story of “the massacre in Bergamo and Lombardy” was being rewritten.

“We feel respected because the prosecutor has given honour to our loved ones who are no longer here and is giving answers to the questions that we started asking three years ago,” added Locati, whose father died of Covid-19. “In all this time, the institutions never gave answers; they instead tried to rewrite the story’s narrative.”