Minister's spokesperson quits after anti-Semitism storm

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 11 - Paolo Signorelli has said that he is resigning as the spokesman of Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida amid a furore over a newspaper report about alleged anti-Semitic comments used in an online chat he had with a convicted criminal who was murdered in 2019.
    The conversation between Signorelli and Fabrizio Piscitelli, a drug-trafficker, right-wing extremist and top Lazio ultra fan also known as Diabolik, featured insults of Jews and praise of Neo-Fascist terrorists, according to a report by daily newspaper La Repubblica.
    The dialogue was uncovered by the investigation into Piscitelli's murder in a Rome park on August 7, 2019 and leaked to the daily.
    Signorelli had suspended himself as the spokesman of Lollobrigida, who is a leading member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, after the report came out.
    "I have decided to resign as spokesperson for the minister Lollobrigida," Signorelli said in an interview published in Tuesday's edition of Il Foglio, "for me and my family and so as not to damage the government" Signorelli said anti-Semitism was "light years away" from him and that he does not identify with the "stupid words spoken in foolishness ignorance.
    "It was another phase of my life, it was another Paolo," he said. (ANSA).