Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday dropped a slander suit against a veteran leftist historian who called her a "neo-Nazi in her soul" when she was sole leader of the opposition in April 2022.
Luciano Canfora's trial for aggravated defamation was due to have started on Monday, October 7.
Meloni has withdrawn the complaint against the historian and philologist from Bari, 82, one of Italy's leading public intellectuals, for calling her "a neo-Nazi at heart", "a poor thing", "and treated like a very dangerous idiot".
Meloni was a civil plaintiff and had asked for compensation of 20 thousand euros.
Canfora's statements on April 11, 2022, came about six months before the rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) scored a crushing electoral victory to become Italy's first woman premier.
Pundits said that, among other things, she had benefitted from FdI being the only party to remain in opposition when former European central banker Mario Draghi formed a national unity technocratic government.
Meloni, whose party has neo-Fascist roots, has repeatedly condemned historical Fascism's suspension of democracy and its "odious" racial laws against the Jews.
In two other defamation cases, Meloni saw anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano fined a suspended 1,000 euros for calling her and former hardline anti-migrant interior minister Matteo Salvini, now deputy premier and transport minister, "bastards" over the death at sea of a six-month-old baby, and is waiting for the start of a trial of the frontman of British rock group Placebo, Brian Molko, who called her "racist and fascist" at a concert in July 2023.
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