The Italian prime minister’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party has found itself at the center of scandal after an MP’s gun went off at a New Year’s Eve party and wounded a guest.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the bizarre incident, which took place in the town of Rosazza in the northern Piedmont region after MP Emanuele Pozzolo took out his .22 calibre mini-revolver to show it off to party guests. While Pozzolo has a license to own the firearm, he reportedly allowed it to be passed around among guests before it “accidentally” went off, striking a man in the leg.
He admitted to bringing the gun to the party but denied pulling the trigger.
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“I confirm the shot was fired accidentally but I wasn’t the one who fired it,” he told local media. Opposition leaders have unanimously condemned the shooting, demanding Prime Minister Georgia Meloni step in and take action.
“It seems like a third-rate film but instead it is reality,” left-wing politician Nicola Fratoianni wrote of the incident on X.
“These incompetents are a danger to the security of those around them, let alone to national security,” the Democratic Party’s Elly Schlein said, per the BBC. Francesca Delmastro, the mayor of Rosazza, told local media she was left “speechless” by the incident.
“I couldn’t never have imagined such a thing,” she said.
Undersecretary Andrea Delmastro, a party colleague of Pozzolo who was at the party at the time, said he had stepped outside when the gunshot went off. “Those who were there told me he had pulled out the weapon, a gun as big as a cigarette lighter, to show it. Then the shot went off accidentally," Delmastro told Corriere della Sera.
The injured man, identified as the son-in-law of a member of Delmastro’s security team, was taken to a hospital and discharged later on New Year’s Day with a minor injury.
Meloni has yet to respond to calls for her intervention. The Brothers of Italy party has dismissed the incident as having no “political relevance.”
