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by The Associated Press
Rome prosecutors asked a judge on Thursday to effectively close the investigation into Italian health officials and the United Nations over Italy’s COVID-19 response in 2020 without bringing charges, on the grounds that no crimes were committed, a lawyer said.
Prosecutors in Rome, Claudia Terracina and Paolo Ilo, requested the archiving of the investigation, which made headlines given the heavy losses inflicted on Italy as the first epicenter of the epidemic in Europe. While a judge could overrule the request, such a decision is highly unlikely.
Prosecutors have already closed their case without bringing charges against three former Italian health ministers. On Thursday, they asked the judge to archive the case against nine other officials, including the former top WHO official, Dr. Ranieri Guerra, his lawyer Roberto De Vita said.
The investigation initially focused on whether late lockdowns in the hard-hit northern city of Bergamo contributed to the death toll, but expanded to include whether Italy’s overall preparation for the crisis played a role.
This included the controversy surrounding a WHO report on Italy’s response that was published by the UN health agency in May 2020 and then deleted the next day and never re-published.
A former WHO official, Francesco Zambon, had suggested that the WHO submitted the report to spare the Italian government criticism that its pandemic preparedness plan had not been updated. The world Health Organization said it was withdrawn because it contained inaccurate information and was published prematurely.
Guerra was the former head of the prevention department at the Italian Ministry of Health until 2017 and was the World Health Organization’s envoy to Italy during the pandemic. De Vita said prosecutors determined the pandemic plan was in the process of being updated.
He welcomed the decision to close the case, saying it should have been closed two years ago once Guerra provided documents to prosecutors showing he had acted properly.
Guerra said in a statement that his reputation had been “seriously” damaged by the controversy and criticized those who accused him of not protecting Italy.
