He was booed and asked to leave by the organiser of the torchlight procession arranged by Giovanni Esposito, the brother of Monica, the 55-year-old woman who died two months after being run over by Salim El Koudri in the centre of Modena. And so Luca Signorelli, the hero who was among the first to tackle the attacker and pin him to the ground on 16 May in Via Emilia Centro, was forced to leave after speaking at the event, escorted away by Carabinieri and Digos officers.
Several hundred people were present in Piazza Grande: the torchlight procession quickly turned into a rally, with many citizens taking the floor to demand greater security in the city. Signorelli, in his remarks, urged those present not to give in to hatred, arguing that El Koudri's attack did not have an "anti-Italian" motive — a reading that sparked the booing.
What happened has prompted an outraged response from the PD and AVS. "Celebrated as a hero even by those who organised the torchlight procession, for the courage he showed in attempting to stop the attacker, yesterday he was challenged by the organisers and forced to leave simply for asking people not to give in to hatred. This is the clearest demonstration of how, for some, political propaganda matters more than respect for people and for the truth," said PD secretary Diego Lenzini. For Paolo Trande of AVS, what happened to Signorelli "is extremely serious," recalling that he is "a citizen who performed an act of extraordinary civic courage and who, from the very first moment, urged everyone to lower the tone, not to give in to hatred and not to turn that tragedy into a tool for political confrontation. And perhaps that is precisely why he is an inconvenient hero."
