There are also two from Catania among the prison police officers involved in the investigation into the attacks on inmates of the Beccaria juvenile prison in Milan. One in prison and one suspended. Thirteen people arrested in total. Eight other employees of the same police force were suspended from duty. The victims identified so far are 12.
The officers ferociously beat the prisoners, minors or adults, to impose their “rules of civil coexistence” in the juvenile prison, even while they were handcuffed and without clothes on. A “consolidated system of repeated violence, harassment, corporal punishment, humiliation” and “punitive” expeditions, as stated in the reconstruction of the investigators which led to the accusation of crimes such as omission, torture, mistreatment, injuries, false ideology and, in a case, even attempted sexual assault. Crimes aggravated by impaired defense, abuse of power, minor age of the victims and frivolous motives.
The investigation
The investigation started from the reports of the city councilor David Gentili and the Guarantor of the rights of prisoners of Palazzo Marino, Francesco Maisto. According to investigations, the victims identified so far are 12 – one was among the escapees of December 25th two years ago – and the various disputed episodes range from the end of 2022 to last March 19th, while the suspects are 25 in total, half of those in service. The investigating judge, in fact, made a distinction between the agents who engaged in particularly violent aggressive conduct and for whom “the only appropriate measure is prison” from that of the agents who with their presence “reinforced the criminal intent and in any case did not prevent the event”. The latter are accused of ideological forgery and, therefore, were suspended from service also to avoid the repetition of the crime or the contamination of the evidence being acquired.
The episodes in which the Catania agents are involved
It is November 18, 2022, after a fire developed inside a cell, the officers attribute responsibility for the event to a prisoner who is taken to the assistants’ room. Here he is handcuffed with his hands behind his back, with enough force to cause a dislocation of his shoulder. Then he is repeatedly hit with slaps, punches and kicks in his private parts until his vision becomes blurred and he is injured. After beating him, he was also punished with 10 days in an isolation cell sleeping on a wooden board without a mattress. “But he’s good, he didn’t touch me. He was just there watching but couldn’t divide because there’s this thing between assistants: whoever is the oldest assistant is in charge. He told me ‘don’t worry'”. He talks about the victim of the beating referring to one of the Catania officers. In another episode, a handcuffed inmate with his face down on the ground was kicked and punched in the head, even with a shoe that left a boot print on the back of his neck.
Surveillance images and medical reports
Although some attacks reportedly occurred in rooms without video surveillance, many others were clearly visible. Beatings in ten against one, “beatings” either with the toes of the boots or with kicks aimed at the face with combat boots, to the point of making them faint or hurting so much that they cannot sleep at night. In some cases the technique used would have been such as not to leave a mark. The investigations still underway will try to understand if there are other figures involved, including for failure to report and provide assistance, or for the falsification of service certificates as often happened. The charges against the prison officers include the refusal of medical treatment after the beatings or statements by the suspects such as “he deserved it”. And again, spitting and insults even of a racist nature. A “repeated and systematic practice” which allegedly continued unpunished also due to the falsified service reports. At a certain point, however, there was a lack of “protection”: the “new” director of Beccaria, they said when intercepted, “is being serious” and “says he wants to take action”.
The guarantor’s complaint
There will be a complaint to the privacy guarantor and to the journalists’ association for the investigation into the arrested prison officers. This was announced by Donato Capece, general secretary of Sappe (Autonomous Prison Police Union), speaking of “unacceptable media pillory” for the publication of the names of those arrested. For Capece, the publication of the list of those arrested “risks putting the people involved in serious danger”.
