Driver dies after Italian basketball fans’ bus attacked with stones

A bus driver has died after being hit when a coach carrying supporters of an Italian basketball team was attacked with stones, allegedly by rival fans.

Pistoia Basket fans were travelling on the highway near the town of Rieti, 80km (50 miles) north-east of Rome, when, according to local media, fans of SRS Sebastiani Rieti began throwing objects.

Fans of Tuscany-based Pistoia were travelling back from a game between the two second-tier sides, which their team won.

A large stone smashed through the windscreen and struck one of the two drivers on the head. Raffaele Marianella, 65, was sitting at the front but not driving at the time of the attack. He later died of his injuries.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the attack was “an unacceptable and insane act of violence”. She expressed her condolences to the victim’s family and said those responsible would be brought to justice.

A police investigation is under way to track down the perpetrators.

Italy’s Sports Minister Andrea Abodi described the attack as a “shocking assault,” carried out by “criminals who have turned into murderers and can never be called fans,” he said.

“This is not about basketball. These are criminals,” said Gianni Petrucci, president of Federbasket, the national basketball federation. He said he would work with the legal authorities on a response to the attack.

“They are murderers, people with no present and no future,” he told national broadcaster RAI.