Italian police arrest boss of farm worker who died after his arm was cut off

Italian police on Tuesday arrested the owner of an agricultural company that employed a 31-year-old farm worker who bled to death after being left outside his hut with his arm severed.

The packing machine that tore apart Satnam Singh’s boat was deliberately placed next to it in a fruit picking box in Latina, south of Rome, in June last year.

The alleged killer, Antonello Lovato, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in the death of Indian-born Singh.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Singh, who died of severe bleeding in a Rome hospital, “would likely have been saved if he had received prompt treatment.”

“Leaving aside ethical assessments that have no bearing on the criminal code but that may be relevant to conduct so inhumane that it violates the most basic values ​​of solidarity, we cannot deny that the suspect deliberately and willfully ignored the likely consequences of his actions,” said Gurmukh Singh, president of the Indian community of Lazio.

“The worst thing Lovato did was leave him on the doorstep instead of taking him to hospital. Accidents can happen, but not seeking medical help is unacceptable. Singh’s horrific death has sparked calls for action to stop these ‘gangsters’ in Italy,” he added.

The death of Singh, one of thousands of Indian immigrants who work in the fields around Latina for slave wages and in appalling conditions and are harassed by “gangsters”, has sparked outrage across the country.

Opposition Five Star Movement (M5S) leader Giuseppe Conte was among those calling on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to take action to end the sometimes brutal exploitation of farm workers, most of whom are immigrants.

Conte, who served twice as prime minister under different administrations, said he expected “harsh words and positions from Meloni”.

“You lose your arm working in the fields for four euros an hour. They don’t treat you right away. They put you in a van and leave you like garbage outside your house. Next to you is a basket of strawberries where your arm is. He bleeds to death and dies,” Conte wrote on the social network X.

“It is like the story of the slave, many centuries ago. We cannot close our eyes, we cannot think of profit, destroying the dignity of work and the last vestiges of humanity. If we ignore these atrocities, we will cease to defend Italy and its values. We are ready to contribute in Parliament to the fight against this barbarity, which must be eradicated from the countryside throughout Italy,” Conte concluded.

Meloni later admitted that Singh was the victim of “inhumane acts.”

But his son-in-law and leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, Italy’s agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida, warned that the same rules could not be applied to all farmers, suggesting Singh was killed by a “criminal”.

At a press conference with Italian Labour Minister Marina Calderone, after talks with unions and employers about Singh’s death and the activities of gang leaders, Lollobrigida said that in such situations “it could happen that there is a criminalisation of the links in the chain.”

“So it may happen that in the face of such serious episodes as in Latin America, all agricultural companies will be held criminally liable. These deaths are not the fault of agricultural entrepreneurs. They are the fault of criminals,” he said.

The often brutal exploitation of immigrant agricultural workers is a chronic problem in Italy, particularly in the south of the country.

Latina is home to thousands of immigrant workers, many of them Sikhs, who pick fruits and vegetables for the local “agro mafia” and legitimate companies.

Latina Mayor Matilde Celentano, a member of the FdI, said the city council would act as a civil plaintiff in this and other “gang” cases.