Italian police detained a farm owner on Tuesday, accusing him of homicide after an undocumented Indian worker died from excessive blood loss following a severe accident. Prosecutors allege that the landowner abandoned the injured worker without calling for medical help.
The victim, Satnam Singh, tragically bled to death after his arm was severed by farm machinery, shocking the Italian public and prompting protests from unions and farm workers demanding better working conditions. This incident has intensified calls to end the exploitative “caporalato” system, which relies on underpaid migrant labor in Italy’s agriculture sector.
President Sergio Mattarella condemned the “cruel” exploitation and “inhuman” conditions faced by seasonal farmhands like Singh.
Carabinieri police in Latina, an agricultural region south of Rome, arrested farm owner Antonello Lovato. Prosecutors elevated the charges from manslaughter to homicide with “malice aforethought,” as per a statement from Latina prosecutors.
The decision followed a forensic report indicating Singh died from “copious blood loss” and would have likely survived with immediate medical care. Singh’s arm was severed when it was caught in a nylon-wrapping machine, but an ambulance was not promptly called.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that Lovato was operating the tractor attached to the nylon-wrapping machine and left the injured Singh outside his home. Witnesses claimed Lovato ignored pleas from Singh’s wife, who also worked on the farm, to call an ambulance, insisting Singh was already dead. A neighbor eventually called for medical help, but Singh was declared dead at San Camillo hospital in Rome approximately two days later.
Latina prosecutors stated that Singh’s critical condition required urgent medical attention, concluding that the failure to provide necessary care contributed directly to his death. “The decision to omit the necessary care constituted acceptance of the risk of the lethal event and directly resulted in death,” the statement read.
