He died during olive harvests in the Bari area, his employer arrested

He had fallen from a tree while he was busy harvesting olives in the Putignano countryside, but his employer, who had not hired him regularly and was exploiting him underpaying him, took him first to the company and then home where he asked his wife to say, in case anyone asked her, that her husband had fallen from a ladder, in order not to be discovered. Instead, Giuseppe Petramala, a 26-year-old with disabilities, had fractures in his ribs and pelvis and internal injuries so serious that when he was finally taken to hospital there was nothing left to do and he died.

Two years later, the employer, a 53-year-old man, was arrested and placed under house arrest on charges of voluntary homicide and exploitation of continued labor. According to the deputy prosecutor Ciro Angelillis, "the entrepreneur decided to put his need to guarantee impunity before the need to save a human life".

The story dates back to 16 October 2024 in the countryside of Putignano and recalls, underlined Angelillis, the story of Satnam Singh, the 31-year-old Indian agricultural worker who died on 19 June 2024 after a very serious accident at work in the countryside of Borgo Santa Maria (Latina).

"He had fractures and internal bleeding, but the 26-year-old could have been saved if he had been helped immediately - underlined Angelillis - and instead we wasted time, accompanying him first to the company, then to his home, convincing his wife to claim that he had fallen down the stairs". It was the woman who, when her husband got worse, accompanied him to the hospital.