Alex Bonucchi was only 25 years old when he is electrocuted to death in a hotel swimming pool near Algiers, where he was working as an employee of the Sacmi Forni company in Imola. He was staying in the hotel together with colleagues and after a day of work he was relaxing in the water, where he died due to an exposed electricity cable. It was the January 4, 2021 and three years later, despite an open case for manslaughter involving the owners of the hotel chain, there is still no culprit for that tragedy.
«Two autopsies show death by electrocution»
The Algiers court has in fact athe owners of the structure were acquitted in two degrees of judgment, no fault according to the judges. That exposed electric cable so close to the water, says mother Barbara, shouldn’t have been there. According to the latest ruling, in fact, Alex would have died from an illness in the water and not from a violent death as found in the autopsy. Barbara Degli Esposti, Alex’s mother, now wants the truth. «There are two autopsies, one Algerian and one Italian, which demonstrate the death by electrocution from an electric discharge from a cable placed near the water” she vented, sometimes remembering her son. “A violent death, with burned lungs, with the burnt hand and the shock coming out of the burnt foot. Practically the shock passed through Alex’s body until his heart stopped beating…. and after three and a half years I’m still here fighting for a minimum of justice.”
The appeal to the Supreme Court
Barbara is angry and together with a new defense lawyer, Roberto Ghini, now has appealed to the Supreme Court. “The Italian embassy in Algeria couldn’t do anything, I’ve never heard from the Farnesina” says the woman. “AND as if it didn’t exist ata fault, the owners of the hotel were acquitted, all this is absurd. Just as it is absurd that the hotel owners have changed their story. A witness to that tragedy, a Belarusian soldier who was with him in the pool, interrogated a few days after Alex’s death, had testified that Alex, coming out of the water, had touched the wire and was electrocuted. In the hearing last February, however, hotel representatives said that the witness was not in the pool, but in the gym. And that he only noticed Alex when he saw him collapsed on the ground when he came out of the tool room.”
The memory of friends and the football team
Meanwhile on social media, many remember Alex, even three years later. His football team, sister, friends and the many people who loved him. A highly appreciated worker, he had already made many trips abroad, he loved life and always willingly returned to the family’s country house. «Now I have all the cards in my hand and reading them I realized that The heart and lung were missing from the body – says the mother. Another anomaly. They told me they had detained them for further investigation. Then when we asked them they told us that after 12 months they were buried in an Algerian cemetery. Why did they keep them? Maybe there were things that couldn’t be known?”. Barbara has no intention of giving up, and she demands justice for a “proud of him” Italian who died abroad.
