'Alarming and disheartening': Sicily coronavirus chief arrested for corruption

Nine others were detained, according to authorities

The head of Sicily's coronavirus efforts has been arrested on suspicion corruption in a past role, police have said.

Antonino Candela has been placed under house arrest after he was also accused of rigging health sector tenders during a previous job.

Nine others were arrested along with Sicily's coronavirus emergency coordinator, police said.

Mr Candela was allegedly part of a "power base made up of businessmen and corrupt public officials", the police statement said, referring to activity before he became head of the region's Covid-19 response unit.

He was among those responsible for helping to rig public tenders for medical equipment and services worth nearly €600m (£536m) since 2016, in return for promised bribes of around €1.8m (£1.6m), authorities alleged.

Mr Candela was director of a provincial health authority in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, which issued the tenders along with a regional agency.

"This is an absolutely alarming and disheartening picture of the level of illegality in the Sicilian health system, where systemic corruption has allowed very large illicit profits," the magistrates' arrest warrant said.

The police also seized seven companies based in Sicily and in the northern region of Lombardy, as well as some €160,000 (£143,000) in bribes allegedly already paid.

"Those who steal public money, if the allegations are confirmed, do not deserve the esteem of so many honest people. Everyone must know that healthcare is not a business," Sicily's regional president Nello Musumeci wrote on Facebook.

Mr Candela was not immediately available for comment.

Italy has suffered one of the world's worst outbreaks of the coronavirus, with more than 32,000 deaths, but Sicily has escaped relatively unscathed along with other southern regions.

Around 3,400 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the region in total, according to official figures.

Sicily's coronavirus death toll stood 268 on Friday.

Additional reporting by Reuters