Alessandro Giuli has dismissed the head of his technical secretariat and his personal secretariat chief. The sackings follow revelations that public funding was refused for the Regeni documentary about the murdered Italian researcher.
Italy’s culture minister Alessandro Giuli has fired two senior officials in the wake of controversy over the denial of state funds to a documentary about Giulio Regeni, the Italian researcher abducted, tortured and killed in Cairo in January 2016.
The dismissals, first reported by Corriere della Sera, concern Emanuele Merlino, head of the ministry’s technical secretariat, and Elena Proietti, who led the minister’s personal secretariat.
Merlino is alleged to have failed in his oversight duties after the documentary Giulio Regeni – Tutto il male del mondo, directed by Simone Manetti, was refused ministry funding despite a formal application from its producer. He is reported to have been aware of the refusal but did not inform the minister.
Proietti’s dismissal stems from a separate matter. The prominent Fratelli d’Italia figure from Umbria reportedly failed to appear at the airport for the minister’s official mission to New York last month, missing the trip entirely.
Giuli had spoken out sharply once the funding refusal came to light. At the David di Donatello awards ceremony at the Quirinale, he called the situation “unacceptable”. He also pledged to restore “moral conscience” where, in his words, opacity and incompetence had prevailed. Subsequently, Giuli promised an alternative funding channel for the film, describing it as a unique case.
Political fallout
Francesco Lollobrigida, the Fratelli d’Italia delegation leader in government, sought to downplay the shake-up, characterising it as routine ministerial restructuring. He expressed confidence that both officials would find useful roles elsewhere within institutional structures.
However, ANSA reports that some within the majority read the dismissals as bearing the implicit imprint of prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s thinking, given the seniority of those involved and the delicate internal politics of Fratelli d’Italia.
Opposition voices were less measured. Sandro Ruotolo, culture spokesperson for the Partito Democratico, characterised the episode as evidence of a coalition riven by internal conflict, score-settling, and competing factions. Former prime minister Matteo Renzi, leader of Italia Viva, went further, accusing Giuli on X of “arrogant incompetence” and calling on the minister to resign rather than sacking others.
The episode is the latest in a series of upheavals at the culture ministry, which earlier in this legislature saw the resignation of under-secretary Vittorio Sgarbi and that of former minister Gennaro Sangiuliano. The Regeni affair has also coincided with an acrimonious public dispute between Fratelli d’Italia representatives and Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco over Russia’s participation in the Venice art exhibition.
The Regeni case
Giulio Regeni was 28 when he disappeared in Cairo on 25 January 2016, where he was conducting doctoral research for Cambridge University on Egyptian trade unions and workers’ rights. His mutilated body was found nine days later on the outskirts of the city, bearing extensive signs of torture. Italian investigators have long believed he was abducted and killed after being mistaken for a foreign spy.
The documentary reconstructs his abduction and torture through the testimony of his family and lawyer, and was released to coincide with the tenth anniversary of his murder. A free public screening is scheduled for 18 May at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, organised by the Fondazione Musica per Roma.
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