Indian worker bleeds to death in accident on Italian farm, landowner arrested

Italian police arrested a farm owner on Tuesday, suspecting he committed murder after one of his illegal workers from India died of excessive blood loss after a farming tool severed his arm. Prosecutors said the landowner abandoned the injured worker and did not call an ambulance.

The tragic death of Satnam Singh has shocked Italians and led to demonstrations by trade unions and farm workers demanding better working conditions. Since the incident, calls have grown louder for an end to the exploitative “caporalato” system that involves the use of underpaid migrant workers in Italy’s agriculture.

President Sergio Mattarella also commented on the case, pointing to the “cruel” exploitation of workers like Singh and the “inhuman” conditions to which seasonal agricultural workers in Italy are often exposed.

Carabinieri police in Latina, an agricultural province south of Rome, arrested farm owner Antonello Lovato after prosecutors upgraded the initial suspicion from manslaughter to manslaughter with “subsequent malice,” according to a statement from the Latina prosecutor’s office.

The decision came after a forensic report found that Singh died of “severe blood loss” and that he “most likely” would have survived if he had received prompt medical attention. However, an ambulance was not immediately called after Singh’s arm was torn off when it became caught in a nylon packaging machine.

According to Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the arrest warrant signed by Judge Giuseppe Molfese said Lovato operated the tractor that pulled the nylon packaging machine and then left the bleeding Singh outside his house.

Italian news reports say witnesses said Lovato refused requests from Singh’s wife, who also worked on the farm, to call an ambulance, saying he was already dead. A neighbor eventually called an ambulance and Singh was taken to San Camillo Hospital in Rome, where he was pronounced dead about two days later.

Latina prosecutors said Singh’s condition after the injury was so critical that he clearly required immediate medical attention. The statement said: “At this stage, therefore, it must be determined that the decision not to provide necessary care represented the acceptance of the risk of the fatal event and aggravated the cause that directly led to death.”