An unemployed bricklayer shot two Italian policemen in a crowded square outside the premier’s office, just as the nation’s new government was being sworn in, investigators have said.
The gunman’s intended target was politicians, a top Italian official said after interviewing him.
Mired in recession and suffering from soaring unemployment, Italy has been in political paralysis since an inconclusive February election.
Yesterday was supposed to be a hopeful day when the country finally got a new government to solve its many problems.
But shots rang out in Colonna Square in Rome near a busy shopping area shortly after 11.30am, just as premier Enrico Letta and his new ministers were taking their oaths at the Quirinal presidential office about half a mile away.
The suspected gunman, dressed in a dark business suit, was immediately grabbed by other police outside Chigi Palace, which houses the premier’s office and other government offices.
The politicians were supposed to have met at the palace later in the day for their first Cabinet meeting.
Mr Letta, 46, had agreed a coalition deal between two bitter political enemies his centre-left forces and the conservative bloc of former premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Rome prosecutor Pierfilippo Laviani told reporters he had questioned the alleged assailant, who was taken to hospital with bruises after being wrestled to the ground.
He identified the man as Luigi Preiti, 49, from Calabria, a southern agricultural area plagued by organised crime and chronic unemployment. Mr Laviani said Preiti had “confessed everything” and did not appear mentally unbalanced.
“He is a man full of problems, who lost his job, who lost everything,” he said.
“He was desperate. In general, he wanted to shoot at politicians but, given that he couldn’t reach any, he shot at the Carabinieri (paramilitary police).”
One of the policemen, shot in the neck, was in critical condition. The other, shot in the leg, suffered a fracture, doctors said.
The shooting “was the tragic gesture of a 49-year-old unemployed man”, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told reporters after briefing Mr Letta and his new Cabinet.
A woman passing by during the shooting was slightly injured. It was unclear if she was grazed by a bullet or hurt in the panic sparked by the gunfire.
A video surveillance camera on the parliament building caught the attacker on film just before and during the shooting, Italian news reports said.
Shortly after police approached him, he began firing, according to the surveillance camera.