BARI – The Court of Appeal of Bari reduced from 8 to 3 years of imprisonment the sentence imposed on 20-year-old Alessio Blasi for the racist attack on 5 April 2022 in the Rossani park which caused, with a violent punch, a 30-year-old of Senegalese people lose an eye.
The judges of second instance redid their calculations, considering those of their colleagues at the Court to be incorrect, but confirmed the responsibility for all the charges: very serious injuries aggravated by racial hatred and the presence of minors, excluding – as the defense had requested ‘defendant – the mitigating factor of provocation.
The attack dates back to the afternoon of April 5, 2022. The boy of Senegalese origins was in the company of two friends and was entering Rossani park. At the same time Blasi came out with two girls and other companions. The two would probably have clashed and after a few unwelcome looks and a few too many words, the 20-year-old would have punched the 30-year-old in the face, making him fall and continuing to hit him with kicks and punches, while he and also some of his friends, especially the girls who were in his company, would have uttered racist phrases such as “go to your country, nigger, before I kill you”.
The accused, as the alleged victim confirmed in the courtroom before the judges in a trial hearing, would first have looked “insistently and in a bad way” at the 25-year-old, then would have threatened and insulted him, then hit him with a first punch causing him to fall ground and then continuing to beat him with punches and kicks, causing him to fracture two ribs. The police were able to identify the attacker, who immediately confessed but denied having acted out of racial hatred, thanks to the images of the video surveillance circuits in the area, the monitoring of the social profiles of the people involved and after listening to some testimonies.
At first instance Blasi, still detained under house arrest, was sentenced to 7 years in prison. In the appeal process the judges confirmed the existence of the multi-aggravated charge but reduced the sentence.
In the contextual reasons for the sentence, the Court explains that “the brutal and completely unjustified violence used against the victim, exclusively out of declared racial hatred, attests to the extreme seriousness of the conduct”, also taking into account the “seriousness of the damage”. The victim, in fact, despite having undergone two surgeries, lost the sight in one eye. Furthermore, the judges highlight “the intensity of the intent and guilt”, recalling that “after hitting the victim with a punch in the eye so violent as to cause the eyeball to explode, while he was helpless on the ground”, the accused ” he continued to kick which caused multiple fractures to the spine.”
According to the Court of Appeal, therefore, «every reasonable doubt can be said to have been proven that the violent action against the victim, due to its intrinsic characteristics and the context in which it was placed, was intentionally aimed at causing the injuries due to a feeling of racial hatred, perceived by those present and such as to arouse in the girls who accompanied him a similar feeling of hatred, expressed verbally in a similar way with respect to the accused, who was incited to continue beating the victim while he was already helpless on the ground for the punch he received in the eye.”
Compensation for damages towards the victim was also confirmed, with the lawyer Michele Filannino forming a civil party.
