BORIS JOHNSON has angrily rejected claims he went abroad to Perugia, in Italy, amid the UK reeling from a warning over a coronavirus second wave arriving imminently.
La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper of record, published a story on Sunday claiming that officials in San Francesco d’Assisi Airport in Perugia saw the Prime Minister land around 2pm on September 11th.
According to their story: “There is a new mystery surrounding Boris Johnson. During the weekend of the 12th and 13th September, the British premier is reported to have secretly been in Perugia, Italy. An official statement of the local airport dated September 17th claims that Mr Johnson was in Perugia “over the past few days”. Local airport sources exclusively told la “Repubblica” and Umbria publication “Umbria24″ that Johnson “travelled to Perugia”. A source reported that Johnson landed in Perugia “on Friday 11 September at 2 pm.”
For reasons that still remain unclear, the story also goes on to mention Luis Suarez and Tony Blair also visiting the town in Umbria. La Repubblica also claim to have spoken to an anonymous airport worker who said Johnson was there “on Friday Sept 11th or Thursday Sept 10th, I don’t remember well”.
In response to the claims made by Italy’s second favourite newspaper, Downing Street said: “This story is completely untrue. The prime minister has not travelled to Italy in recent months. Anyone who publishes these claims is repeating a falsehood.”
On the weekend La Repubblica alleges that Boris was in Italy, The Sun reported that he was attending a secret christening for his son at Westminster Cathedral with fiancé Carrie Symonds.
