«History is being rewritten»- Corriere.it

Serene, certain of “having acted in the interest of the country”, they ensure that they have “full confidence in the judiciary”. This is the meaning of the comments by Giuseppe Conte, then Prime Minister, and Roberto Speranza, his Minister of Health, investigated in the Bergamo investigation into Covid as well as the president and health councilor of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana and Giulio Gallera.

«I learned from the press the news regarding the Bergamo investigation – comments Conte, today a deputy – I immediately advance my maximum availability and collaboration with the judiciary. I am calm in front of the country and the Italian citizens for having worked with the utmost commitment and with a full sense of responsibility during one of the hardest moments experienced by our Republic”. Former minister Speranza: «I have always thought that anyone who has been responsible for managing the pandemic must be ready to account for it. I am very serene and sure that I have always acted with discipline and honor in the exclusive interest of the country”. The conclusion, then, concerns the work of the investigators: “I have full faith, as always, in the judiciary,” says Speranza.

A completely different register chooses, for President Fontana, re-elected only a few weeks ago, his lawyer: «We didn’t have the slightest sign of participating in the “banquet” of the suspects – explains the lawyer Jacopo Pansa -. Fontana had been heard as a person informed of the facts and since then there has been absolute silence. Today, without any formal notification, we learn from the media that the president is among the suspects. We note that the prosecutor of Bergamo has underlined that the conclusion of the investigation is not an indictment. We’ll see, we’ll see. It’s not even an act of defense, though.” The former councilor Gallera endorses the investigators’ reference to the “act of defense and not of accusation” which is every notice of conclusion of the preliminary investigations. And he guarantees collaboration with the judiciary: «I am serene. We faced Covid with our bare hands and, based on the very little information we had, we implemented the most appropriate decisions to deal with the emergency. I collaborated with the prosecution as a person informed about the facts and I will continue to do so even now”.

The question, however, as well as judicial, is political. And from the Brothers of Italy, who was with the rest of the center-right in opposition to the Conte government, and who at the time of the pandemic criticized the measures taken by the premier and the minister on several occasions, we are once again asking for a commission of inquiry parliamentarian on Covid. “Today, even those who proved to be reluctant will understand its importance”, says the first signatory of a bill that has already been filed, Galeazzo Bignami, now deputy minister for Infrastructure and Transport: “The aim is to fully ascertain the truth”. He is joined by the president of the Health Commission in the Senate, Franco Zaffini, always an exponent of FdI: «We remain guaranteed, but with the closure of the investigations and the related guarantee notices, the judiciary seems to take up the doubts about the management of Covid that I had raised in the political arena. An investigation at that level is needed now more than ever.”

While the families of the victims, gathered in the association «Serene and always united», they celebrate the closure of the investigations: «From today the history of the massacre in Bergamo and Lombardy is being rewritten. The story of an Italy that has forgotten what happened in the spring of 2020 not because of Covid but because of precise decisions or lack of decisions. We have always fought for the truth for our loved ones, despite the silence that has characterized this affair”.

Registration in the register of suspects of the heads of national and regional governments “does not give us back our loved ones but honors the memory of those who paid in person”. The lawyers of the association go even further: «Today it has been established that the victims have paid the price of institutional inefficiency and incompetence. And someone will have to answer for it.” Relatives and lawyers of “Serene and always united” will gather this morning outside the Bergamo prosecutor’s office to “testify gratitude to the magistrates”.