TgLa7 exclusively published a document from the Prosecutor’s Office which states that Renzo Lovato, father of Antonello Lovatothe 37-year-old who abandoned the Indian laborer Satnam Singh outside his house after the latter lost his right arm in an accident at work on his farm, has been under investigation for five years for gangmaster crimes in another case.
Laborer who died in Latina, the employer’s father: “His carelessness cost everyone dearly”
La7 news director Enrico Mentana anticipated the news in a post published on his Facebook profile.
It is therefore not the first time that a Lovato company has come under investigation. The agricultural entrepreneur from the Pontine area who immediately after the Satnam Singh tragedy tried to shift the blame for the accident onto the victim (“he committed a carelessness that cost everyone dearly”) is in fact awaiting the date of the hearing which could cost him his process for an investigation that started 5 years ago.
The investigation, as revealed by TgLa7, was opened in 2019 by Latina prosecutor’s office and it is called Yamuna, from the name of the Punjab river, the area from which most of the laborers employed in the fields of lower Lazio come. That investigation, in addition to Renzo, sees other entrepreneurs from the Pontine countryside under investigation. Now the court only has to schedule the hearing before the preliminary hearing judge, the judge who will have to decide on their possible indictment.
Death of Satnam Singh, the laborers in the square in Latina: “Regularize us”
As we read in the indictment shown during the news, Renzo Lovato and his colleague Massimo Varelli turned to the Indian corporal Paul Uttam to find low-cost labour. More, at rock-bottom costs. The workers, according to the reconstruction of the prosecutor’s office, were paid on a piecework basis without respecting the minimum wage. Workplace safety and hygiene regulations were also violated: the investigators to whom the prosecutors delegated the investigation found dilapidated bathrooms and no suitable place to eat meals or change clothes.
A separate chapter is that of the workers’ homes: dilapidated houses, with precarious roofs, where the workers live crowded together like animals. Furthermore, obviously paying the employer a rent of 110 euros per month. Now all that remains is to wait for the hearing to be scheduled. Lovato risks prosecution for labor exploitation.
