There have been a lot of criticism about that at the time in Italy, investigations and even a trial IIRC.
So, these things happened, but weren't blindly accepted, at least not in Italy.
I'm just trying to understand the context of the 'arrests' as the article is paywalled. I'm not making any justifications in either of the cases, not sure why you feel the need to downvote a simple question for clarification.