Today's Edition
MODENA (AFP)
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Sunday visited people wounded by a driver with a history of mental health problems who ran over several pedestrians in a city centre in northern Italy.
The driver, a 31-year-old Italian man, hit several people before crashing into a shop window, colliding head-on with a woman.
The city's mayor Massimo Mezzetti pointed out that two Egyptian nationals had helped stop the knife-wielding driver when he tried to run.
Eight people were wounded in Saturday's incident in Modena, four of them seriously, including a woman who had to have both legs amputated, officials said.
Meloni cancelled a planned visit to Cyprus to go to Modena, a government source said. The leader travelled with President Sergio Mattarella to a hospital treating the wounded.
Security camera footage broadcast by Italian media showed a car being driven at high speed into a city centre street packed with pedestrians and cyclists.
The suspect tried to flee the scene but was chased and cornered by four passers-by, then pulled a knife and injured one of them.
The driver, an economics graduate born in 1995 who was not known to the police, went through a spell of "psychological disturbance" in 2022, city prefect Fabrizia Triolo said at a news conference on Saturday.
"He had been treated at a mental health centre for schizoid disorders, but we lost track of him after that initial period of observation in a care facility," she added.
According to the prefect, the driver was not under the influence of "psychotropic substances".
His home near Modena has been searched but sources quoted in Italian media said the investigation so far has shown no sign of the man's intentions.
Meloni wrote on X that the incident was "extremely serious".
"I would also like to express my thanks to the citizens who courageously intervened to detain the perpetrator, as well as to the law enforcement officers for their response," she added.
Mayor Mezzetti thanked "those citizens who showed courage and civic duty".
He added: "We need to understand what's behind this act. But it was a dramatic event. I am deeply shaken."
