Meloni calls for 'truth' on Bologna arrest death after fierce protests

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday called for a full investigation into the death of a man during an arrest in Bologna, while condemning anti-police protests that turned violent and left dozens of officers injured.

Abderrahim Fakir, a Moroccan-born entrepreneur who ran a small removals and cleaning business, died on Sunday after police were called to the Pilastro neighborhood on the outskirts of the northern city to deal with a man who was behaving aggressively and damaging a vehicle.

The incident has been likened to George Floyd's murder in the United States six years ago, and also prompted comparisons with tactics used by the US's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Donald Trump.

"It is essential that any responsibilities be ascertained with the utmost rigor. The truth must be pursued thoroughly, without prejudice and without leniency toward anyone," Meloni wrote on X.

The right-wing premier also denounced violence against police during a protest in central Bologna late on Monday which, according to police union COISP, left 56 officers injured.

The demonstration turned violent when a group of protesters threw firecrackers, bottles and chairs at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannon, Italian media reported.

"Those who chose to use this incident as a pretext to lay waste to the city, attack officers and spread violence ... were not seeking the truth: they were seeking confrontation," Meloni said.

Investigation ongoing 

A video of Fakir's final moments, widely shared on social media, shows him face down on the ground while two officers restrain him. 

In the video, Fakir – who reportedly suffered from heart issues and asthma – repeatedly calls out "aiuto, aiuto, basta" ("help, help, that's enough") as the officers sit on him and ambulance workers look on.

He can be heard saying he could not breathe before his movements gradually stop. After he stops moving, the police bind his ankles together. Only after a moment or two do they and the ambulance workers check his vital signs, the video shows.

According to Italian media, officers called to the scene by local residents concerned by Fakir's erratic behavior told the ambulance personnel that he was "having a psychiatric episode".

The reports continue that officers initially tried to calm Fakir before using pepper spray and restraining him while attempting to handcuff him after he reacted aggressively. Bologna police said body-camera footage from the officers involved would be made available to investigators.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation, which has reignited debate in Italy over police use of force during arrests and prompted comparisons with past cases that resulted in years of legal proceedings and calls for reform.

"They killed my brother in cold blood, I want justice," Fakir's sister, Khadija, told reporters during a protest in Pilastro on Sunday attended by hundreds of people.

"You can't die like this," she told the Corriere della Sera daily. "The police have to protect us. If someone is agitated, you have to calm them down... not kill them like a dog."

At Monday's protest, Fakir's niece Yossra Fakir addressed the crowd to say "We will continue to demand the truth for him and for our family, so that no one else ever has to go through what he went through. 

"We're here to ask for truth and justice."

Conservative backlash

As with George Floyd in the US, the death has inflamed suspicion of authority. In Bologna, protesters held up slogans such as "State murderers" and "Justice and truth for Fakir!"

However, right-leaning politicians have been quick to back the police.

"Just as every citizen has the right to the presumption of innocence, the same principle must apply to those who wear a uniform," Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told daily Il Messaggero.

"Whoever makes insulting remarks against the police shows they have no trust in our law enforcement nor in our justice system (and) should look into what happened," Piantedosi told state television network Rai1.

Italy's far-right Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini also defended the police, while Galeazzo Bignami, head of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party in parliament's lower house, praised the officers' "professional conduct".

But Senator Ilaria Cucchi, whose brother died in custody in 2009, said she was sickened by the "solidarity and thanks" expressed to police after such an "inhumane act".

Cucchi, a member of the opposition Greens and Left alliance (AVS) party, slammed far-right Meloni and her coalition government, saying their "policies seeped in hatred and racism" have fostered a climate of violence.

Francesco Boccia, head of the center-left Democratic Party (PD) in the Senate, told the Repubblica daily that "if the right wants to import the ICE model, this is the wrong country for it. We have democratic antibodies".

Lawyer Barbara Spinelli told the ANSA news agency that she had met Fakir last year, when he applied to renew his permit to stay. She remembered him as "a very kind, well educated, respectful person" who was in Italy legally, but who worried about being expelled.

"I told him: 'We are in Italy, a democratic country. Here the police respect the rules'," she said. "I don't know how I will ever again manage to tell someone they don't need to be afraid."