Ex-Italian prime minister and health minister cleared of Covid culpability

Court rules that Giuseppe Conte and Roberto Speranza not at fault over 6,000 excess deaths in Bergamo at start of pandemic

Italy's former prime minister Giuseppe Conte and the former health minister Roberto Speranza were not responsible for the alleged mismanagement of the country's first phase of the Covid pandemic, a court ruled on Wednesday.

Last March, prosecutors in Bergamo, the Lombardy province worst hit during the first wave of the virus in 2020, had placed Conte and Speranza under investigation on suspicion of aggravated culpable epidemic" and manslaughter in connection with the government's response at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.