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Italy tightens rules on releasing mafiosi from prison during coronavirus outbreak

The Italian government has tightened conditions for the release of mobsters from prison due to coronavirus fears, after an outcry over the scheme meant to protect them against infection.

Published: 10 May 2020 14:55 CEST
Italy tightens rules on releasing mafiosi from prison during coronavirus outbreak
Photo: MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO / AFP

A decree adopted overnight Sunday now requires that any release be reviewed every two weeks to ensure that it was fully justified and remains so.

Some 376 mafiosi and drug dealers have been moved from jails to house arrest since March and judges were examining release requests from 456 others, the Repubblica daily reported on Thursday.

READ ALSO: Italy's coronavirus death toll passes 30,000

Those freed include notorious Cosa Nostra boss Francesco Bonura, 78, and Franco Cataldo, 85, who was part of a gang which murdered the teenage son of a turncoat in 1996 and dissolved his body in acid.

The releases followed widespread riots in prisons in March by inmates fearful of catching the virus, which has killed some 30,000 people in Italy but there was much public unease given the seriousness of some of their crimes, prompting the government to backtrack.

“No one can think they can take advantage of the health emergency caused by the coronavirus to get out of prison,” Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede was quoted as saying by the AGI news agency on Sunday.

“There is a new rule now which is going to put things straight,” Bonafede said.

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

READ ALSO:

Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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