Italian authorities announced on Saturday that six men have been arrested in connection to a nightclub stampede in which six people were killed, Euronews reports.
The arrests were conducted in the night on Saturday. The six men are accused of being part of an organised group stealing in bars and clubs by causing panic with pepper spray and have been charged with manslaughter.
The chief prosecutor for Ancona, Monica Garulli, said those arrested are aged 19 to 22. She added that they continued to steal after the tragedy but without irritant spray.
Six people including five teenagers and a 39-year-old woman who had accompanied her daughter to the Lanterna Azzurra nightclub in Corinaldo, some 55 km northwest of Ancona, were killed in the stampede on December 8, 2018.
More than 1,000 people had attended the venue for a concert by Italian rapper Sfera Ebbasta.
Panic broke out at around 1:00 am local time with people rushing to emergency exits but a railing for a walkway leading to the parking collapsed under the pressure, prompting some to fall a metre below. Those at the bottom were crushed to death.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini reacted on Twitter, thanking investigators for their work, adding that the arrests send “an important signal.”
“No arrest will return the victims to their loved ones, but it is our duty to identify the culprits and punish them as they deserve,” he also wrote.