The year 2024 has not started on a good foot for Brothers of Italy. The party of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, is involved in a strange scandal after a shot from a pistol by one of the deputies of the far-right party caused an injury during the New Year’s Eve party of the undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice, Andrea. Delmastro. The Prosecutor’s Office is investigating events that occurred in a small town of barely a hundred inhabitants, Rosazza, in the Piedmont region. And today, Meloni has taken action on the matter and during the end-of-year press conference – postponed to this Thursday because she was ill – she announced that she has asked the party to “suspend” the legislator.

It is still not clear what happened around one thirty in the morning during this party in a place in this remote town where Delmastro was celebrating the New Year with his family, the families of some members of his bodyguard and other friends and relatives of area. Pozzolo, a Brother of Italy deputy who joined this formation from the League eight years ago, had come to toast after twelve. And he had brought with him a mini-gun that he legally owns with his weapons permit, a North American Arms LR22, a small revolver that can cost up to 450 euros. The gun ended up firing a bullet that wounded Luca Campana, a 31-year-old man who is the son-in-law of an agent in Delmastro’s bodyguard and who was at the meeting, in the leg. Fortunately, the injury was not serious and he has already been discharged from the hospital. Yesterday, the young man announced that he had denounced the politician.

According to the deputy, it was all an unfortunate accident, but now the Prosecutor’s Office of the city of Biella, to which Rosazza corresponds, must clarify the various open questions. Starting with who fired the gun. According to the version of the Brothers of Italy deputy, given during an interrogation of almost seven hours in which he quickly admitted that the gun was his and that he had taken it to the party, it was the victim who injured himself when returning the gun. that had fallen to the ground. Campana has stated the opposite and has assured that he did not touch the gun at any time.

Meloni, for her part, is furious. According to the Italian press, she is especially angry because the case, on the eve of the European elections, does not help the image of seriousness that she wants the Brothers of Italy to project in Europe. During the press conference she wanted to send a message to all members of her party warning that she hopes everyone faces “responsibility” in the same way she does. “I will be rigid,” she warned.