A New Year’s Eve that ended badly is at the center of controversial debates in Italy after a person was slightly injured by a gunshot on the night of December 31 to 1er January, during a party attended by several representatives of the party of council president Giorgia Meloni. The weapon in question is a pocket pistol, fitting comfortably in the palm of the hand. It belongs to the deputy Fratelli d’Italia (FdI, national conservative) Emanuele Pozzolo, who took it with him when he went after midnight to a party where the mayor of the hamlet of Rosazza, located in the Piedmontese Alps, was 70 kilometers from Turin.
Thursday, during his end-of-year press conference delayed for health reasons, Mr.me Meloni said he “requested that deputy Pozzolo be referred to the ethics commission of Fratelli d’Italia and that, pending the judgment, he be suspended [du parti] » for the “unresponsible behavior” having consisted of drawing his weapon.
The councilor of the village where the New Year’s Eve was held, Francesca Delmastro, happens to be the sister of the Undersecretary of State for Justice Andrea Delmastro, a member of FdI and also present at the time of the events. The injured man, aged 31, is the son-in-law of one of Mr. Delmastro’s escort agents. The latter is also concerned by a legal investigation into the revelation to a member of his party of secret information collected within his ministry.
“Passion for weapons”
Mr. Delmastro indicated to the Corriere della Sera that, according to guests, Mr. Pozzolo was showing his pistol to the audience when the gun went off by accident. According to statements published in the Italian press, the deputy, who held a valid weapons permit, nevertheless affirmed that if the weapon which injured the leg of one of the participants in the The party was indeed his, he was not the shooter. Mr. Pozzolo is in any case the only one to be concerned by the investigation opened by the public prosecutor’s office in Biella, the capital of the province. Member of Parliament elected for the first time in September 2022 defining himself as “ anarcho-conservative »he stood out during the pandemic for his anti-vaccine positions.
The affair of Rosazza – a locality known for the esoteric architectural mark left there by an aristocrat keen on the occult at the end of the 19th centurye century – broke out in a particular context. An FdI senator, Bartolomeo Amidei, tabled a bill at the end of December 2023 allowing minors over the age of 16 to be authorized to hunt and therefore handle rifles. The text was immediately withdrawn at the request of FdI Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida, but it had time to raise questions about the relationship that the Italian right has with the use of weapons, which is also often quick to advocate self-defense.
You have 20% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.