Italy's Meloni calls for calm over hunger strike prisoner
Feb 05, 2023
Rome (Italy), February 5: Italian Prime Minister GiorgiaMeloni on Saturday appealed for calm after protests about a jailed anarchist who has been on hunger strike since October over his detention conditions.
"I call on everyone, starting with the members of the Brothers of Italy, to bring [the tone] back to a level of sincere and respectful debate," Meloni wrote, referring to her own party among others, in a letter published online by the Corrieredella Sera newspaper.
Alfredo Cospito has been on hunger strike for more than 100 days as he is being held under highly restrictive conditions usually reserved for Mafia members, drug traffickers, terrorists and other categories of serious offender.
Cospito was sentenced to life imprisonment on terrorism charges after carrying out a bombing in 2006 and shooting a manager in 2012.
His case has dominated the news in Italy for days.
Meloni had refrained from commenting on the case but expressed her annoyance in the letter, angered that Italian journalists asked her about Cospito during her Berlin visit, before the international press and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, instead of showing interest in her work as Italy's leader.
"The reason I have not intervened so far is that I have tried not to feed a controversy that I think is counterproductive for everyone," she wrote.
Cospito's situation has sparked protests by sympathisers in Italy and elsewhere, including an arson attack on an Italian embassy car in Berlin.
Source: Qatar Tribune
