Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has moved to contain mounting outrage over the death of a Moroccan-born man during a police arrest in Bologna, seeking to prevent the case from hardening into Italy’s equivalent of the 2020 George Floyd riots in the United States while firmly resisting attempts to condemn law enforcement before the evidence is known.
Meloni on Tuesday called for any responsibility in the death of Abderrahim Fakir to be established ‘with the utmost rigour, without prejudice and without leniency’. She also condemned rioters who attacked officers and damaged central Bologna, saying those who used the tragedy as a pretext for violence were seeking confrontation rather than truth.
Fakir, 42, died shortly before 1pm on Sunday, 19 July, in Via Svevo, in the city’s working-class Pilastro district. Police had been summoned after residents reported a highly agitated man shouting, kicking garage doors, threatening a motorist, and apparently believing somebody wanted to kill him.
Officers used pepper spray and restrained Fakir face down while paramedics were present. Video circulated online shows him calling for help and struggling to breathe before becoming motionless. Emergency workers later attempted to resuscitate him unsuccessfully, and he was pronounced dead at 12.53pm.
Fakir was born in Morocco but had lived in Italy since childhood and operated a small cleaning and logistics business. Reports said he had asthma and possible heart problems, while investigators are also examining whether he was experiencing a psychiatric crisis. The cause of death remains unknown pending an autopsy.
Bologna prosecutors have opened a preliminary negligent homicide inquiry involving the two police officers and four medical workers present during the incident. The case is being handled under Italy’s new ‘45-bis’ procedure, intended to prevent officers from automatically being treated as criminal suspects when the initial use of force appears justified. Body-camera footage, emergency calls, and witness videos are currently being collected.
The case has already sparked significant outrage, with many accusing the police officers of deliberately killing the Moroccan-born man. Left-wing Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore announced a peaceful vigil on Monday, attended by thousands. The gathering later descended into violent riots, with several hundred far-left activists throwing bottles, chairs, firecrackers, and a paper bomb at police. Chanting ‘police murderers’, the rioters erected barricades and set a municipal vehicle on fire.
Police responded with batons, tear gas, and water cannon. According to police unions, more than 50 officers were injured in the clashes.
The case has sparked a political storm across the country. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the presumption of innocence must apply to the officers as much as to anyone else. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini accused the left of fostering hostility towards the police, called the rioters ‘thugs’, and announced plans to visit Bologna in solidarity with officers.
Brothers of Italy and the League also blamed Mayor Lepore for losing control of the streets and called for his resignation. Lepore insisted that the peaceful thousands—not the violent minority—represented Bologna. Opposition politicians demanded transparency, while the family’s lawyer called for an investigation independent of the police.
Prosecutors must now determine whether the restraint, pepper spray, extreme heat, delayed medical intervention, or Fakir’s underlying health problems caused or contributed to his death, based on the autopsy, toxicology tests, and the complete body-camera footage.
The case has already prompted comparisons with the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man who died during an arrest in Minneapolis in May 2020, triggering months of protests, riots, and looting across many American cities and parts of Western Europe.
‘Brothers of Italy and the League also blamed Mayor Lepore for losing control of the streets and called for his resignation’
A similarly controversial death involving police actions also sparked widespread outrage in the United Kingdom earlier this year. In the case of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old British teenager was fatally stabbed by a Sikh man who allegedly falsely portrayed himself as the victim of racial abuse, leading responding officers to restrain the bleeding teenager in handcuffs. Nowak later died at the scene. His case has frequently been described as a ‘reverse George Floyd’ because of similar criticism regarding racial assumptions distorting the officers’ response.
The analogy falls short, however, when the victims’ backgrounds and the circumstances of their arrests are considered. Nowak had only recently begun his university studies and had no criminal record; he was restrained after being stabbed. Floyd, by contrast, had an extensive criminal record and was being arrested on suspicion of committing another offence when officers restrained him.
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