A driver has died after a bus of Italian basketball fans was pelted with stones

A bus driver has died after being hit when a coach carrying supporters of an Italian basketball team was stoned, allegedly by rival fans.

Pistoia Basket fans were traveling on the highway near the town of Rieti, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Rome, when SRS Sebastiani Rieti fans started throwing objects, according to local media.

Fans of Tuscany-based Pistoia were returning from a match between the two second-tier sides, which their team won.

A large stone smashed the windshield and hit one of the two drivers on the head. Raffaele Marianella, 65, was sitting in the front but was not driving at the time of the attack. He later died from his injuries.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the attack was an “unacceptable and senseless act of violence”. She expressed her condolences to the victim’s family and said the culprits will be brought to justice.

A police investigation is underway to find the perpetrators.

Italy’s sports minister, Andrea Abodi, described the attack as a “shocking attack” carried out by “criminals who have become murderers and can never be called fans”, he said.

“This is not about basketball. These are criminals,” said Gianni Petrucci, president of Federbasket, the national basketball federation. He said he would work with judicial authorities to respond to the attack.

“They are murderers, people with no present and no future,” he told national RAI television.