Fabio Tuiach continues to insist that covid is a scam.

An Italian former councillor says he has caught covid after being sprayed with water cannons by police during a recent protest against Italy's Green Pass at Trieste port.

Fabio Tuiach, a prominent No Vax activist known for his controversial views, blamed getting soaked by the water cannons for his illness before repeating that "covid is a scam".

Tuaich wrote on his Facebook page on Monday: "For me covid exists only in the minds of hypnotised people but in any case I am taking anti-inflammatories and vitamins," adding that he would "leave the experimental vaccine to Godless hypochondriacs."

• Italy police use water cannon to clear No Green Pass sit-in at Trieste port

The 41-year-old is a former city councillor with the neo-fascist Forza Nuova group, and before that again with the right-wing Lega party from which he was expelled after stating that "femicide is just an invention of the left."

Tuiach, an ex-professional heavyweight boxer, has been active in the recent No Green Pass protests organised by the dockers in Trieste port where he works.

He has appeared frequently on Italian television over the last week or so, always without a mask, during the demonstrations in Trieste over the government's obligation for all workers in Italy to have the covid Green Pass certificate.

• Italy: Trieste dockers continue Green Pass protest ahead of talks with minister

There is footage of Tupiach trying to block the car of a docker from entering the port as well as him holding rosary beads and shouting his anti-vaccine views into a megaphone.

No stranger to controversy, Tuiach is a self-proclaimed fascist who said in the past that the coronavirus is "divine punishment" for gays.

Photo La Stampa