Prosecutors Question Italy PM Over Handling Of Virus Crisis

Prosecutors questioned Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte for about three hours on Friday over his handling of the coronavirus emergency, his office confirmed

Rome, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Jun, 2020 ) :Prosecutors questioned Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte for about three hours on Friday over his handling of the coronavirus emergency, his office confirmed.

Prosecutors from Bergamo, the city in the northern Lombardy region worst hit by the virus, have launched an investigation into why two cities were not designated so-called "red zones" earlier on in the crisis.

The epidemic has killed over 34,000 in Italy, one of the hardest hit countries in the world, mostly in the country's north.

Chief prosecutor Maria Cristina Rota and her team are trying to find out why a lockdown was not enforced early in the health emergency around the towns of Nembro and Alzano in the province of Bergamo.

Health experts say had the area been quarantined, many lives would have been saved.

The team has already met with senior officials in Lombardy, who say it was up to Rome to decide whether certain areas should be shut.

Conte has countered that regions had full discretion to close certain areas where the virus had begun to flare in late February and early March.

"If Lombardy had wanted to, it could have made Alzano and Nembro red zones," he has said.

The first town in Italy to be quarantined was Codogno, about an hour south of Nembro and Alzano, on February 21.