Death of Andrea Purgatori, the investigating judge orders a maxi-expertise to ascertain the causes

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The truth about the journalist’s death could arrive after the summer Andrea Purgatori, who passed away on 19 July 2023 at the age of 70. The investigating judge of Rome, as part of the investigation launched by the Prosecutor’s Office and which sees four doctors under investigation for manslaughter, has entrusted a major expert opinion which will have to ascertain what caused the death of the former Corrrire della Sera correspondent and presenter of the TV show Atlantis on La7.

Ninety days to clarify

As part of the evidentiary hearing, which had been requested in recent weeks by the prosecutors, the judge also asked the specialists in charge to clarify the presence of metastases and to try to ascertain how and when the heart infection started. The experts now have ninety days to complete their checks: the hearing has been adjourned to September 26th.

The suspects

The radiologist is registered in the register of suspects Gianfranco Gualdihis assistant Claudio Di Biasi and the doctor Maria Chiara Colaiacomoboth members of his team, and the cardiologist Guido Laudani, who treated Purgatori. The unrepeatable preliminary investigation had been requested by the Capitoline Prosecutor’s Office in recent weeks in light of a consultancy that had been arranged to try to clarify the clinical picture of the journalist who died at the age of 70.

No signs of brain metastases

The conclusions of the consultancy are cited in the request. In a nutshell, the investigation «highlights that the journalist, despite suffering from metastatic lung cancer, died due to the consequences of an infectious endocarditis which induced widespread systemic embolization in the patient. This pathology – we read – was not identified in time to be able to promptly start the appropriate treatments, and precisely in relation to its omitted and in any case late diagnosis” the cardiologist was registered.

The document also states that the consultants appointed by prosecutor Giorgio Orano brought to light “serious critical issues in the reporting of the MRI of the brain on 8 May 2023, already subject to censorship by the journalist’s family members”. The report «in fact diagnosed “without margin of doubt” brain metastases of the primary tumor (as mentioned in the lung) whose presence – states the deputy prosecutor – was instead excluded by the autopsy and histological findings. Furthermore, the report did not indicate the possibility that the brain lesions highlighted by the MRI had an ischemic nature.”