The three judges dismissed the charges against the head of Lombardy but sent the case back to the prosecutor’s office for five people accused of refusing to carry out their duties.
An Italian court dismissed the case today against the head of Lombardy Attilio Fontana and 11 other people who were blamed for the way they handled the Covid-19 pandemic.
On June 7, another court dismissed the same charges against former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and then Health Minister Roberto Speranza. Prosecutors in Bergamo, the city at the center of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, had opened an investigation against Conte, Speranza and 17 others for manslaughter and mismanagement of the pandemic.
Today, the three judges in Brescia dismissed the charges against Fontana but sent the case back to the prosecutor’s office for five people accused of refusing to carry out their duties. In their reasoning, the judges ruled that the charges against Fontana and the others were “unfounded” because authorities around the world, including Lombardy, were faced with a novel epidemiological situation.
Fontana’s lawyers, Jacopo Pensa and Federico Papa, welcomed the decision. “He has always acted according to the law and his conscience, did not facilitate the pandemic and did not cause the deaths attributed to him,” they said in their statement.
On the other hand, the association of the relatives of the victims of Covid-19 said they were surprised. “No one will have to give answers to the families of the victims… because all the preventive measures required by Italian and European legislation were not taken,” they wrote in their statement.
Source :Skai
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