• Case Cucchi, judge abstains from the process of misleading: "I am a former policeman"
  • Cucchi case. Redundancy process, family calls ex Trenta and La Russa ministers
  • Cucchi, the German lawyer asks for acquittal: "During the beating he defended him and rescued him"
  • Cucchi case. Ilaria: this is the year of the turning point, the truth has entered the Chamber
  • Cucchi case. PM asks 18 years for the two Carabinieri accused of the beating
  • Stefano Cucchi, the indictment of the PM: "First Kafkaesque process: it was not sloppiness, it was misdirection"

Share

November 14, 2019The judges of the I Court of Assizes of the Court of Rome, chaired by Vincenzo Capozza, sentenced the carabinieri Alessio Di Bernardo and Raffaele D'Alessandro to 12 years for the death of Stefano Cucchi, which took place in the penitentiary department of the Pertini hospital October 22, 2009, a week after his arrest for drug possession on the night of October 15-16. The carabinieri Alessio Di Bernardo and Raffaele D'Alessandro have been found guilty of intentional homicide following the injuries caused to Cucchi by beatings in the Casalino station because the Roman surveyor had refused to undergo photos. Also sentenced to three years and eight months the marshal Roberto Mandolini, at the time commander of the Appia station, accused of forgery in drafting the arrest report, and two and a half years the carabiniere Francesco Tedesco accused of forgery always for the compilation of the same .

The hot reactions of the Cucchi family
Stefano's mother: "A little relief after 10 years of struggles, exhausting pains and untruthful trials". Thus Rita Calore, Stefano Cucchi's mother. "We did not want a culprit, we wanted the culprits and finally after 10 years we have them. This sentence speaks clearly to everyone", added the father of Stefano, Giovanni Cucchi. And sister Ilaria: "Stefano was killed, we knew this and we have been repeating it for 10 years. Maybe now he can remarry in peace. Our thoughts go to the carabiniere Casamassima and his wife".

Prescription doctors
A few minutes before the sentence on the carabinieri the first of the two sentences awaited for the third trial of Appeal for the death of Stefano Cucchi had arrived, arrested in October 2009 for possession of drugs and died a week later. As regards the aspect linked to the medical part, the trial ended, as was the case, with a sentence of not having to proceed due to a prescription against the four doctors of the Sandro Pertini hospital and the acquittal for a fifth doctor.

The sentence
The judges acquitted for not having committed the fact Stefania Corbi and prescribed the accusations for Aldo Fierro, Flaminia Bruno, Luigi De Marchis Preite and Silvia Di Carlo who took care of Stefano during the hospitalization in the protected department. The accusation for all was of culpable homicide. The deputy attorney general, Mario Remus, in the hearing of May 6th last had asked not to have to proceed by prescription of the crime. "The prescription of the crime is a defeat for the justice, but this process has been made among a thousand difficulties" had underlined the pg in its indictment.

The judicial process
Seven trials, three investigations, two pronouncements of the Cassation for a truth that will arrive today, ten years after the death of Stefano Cucchi, Roman surveyor who died in the hospital while, entrusted to the State, he was under custody. A human ordeal, that of Stephen, which lasted a week, to which was added the judiciary that Sister Ilaria and her family faced first in everyone's silence and then with institutional solidarity. Cucchi has become, more than the many victims "in the hands of the state" such as Giuseppe Uva and Federico Aldrovandi, a symbol of the battle for the human rights of prisoners and against any abuse of power over the latter.

October 15th 2009
Stefano Cucchi is stopped by the carabinieri at the Parco degli Acquedotti in Rome because he is in possession of some grams of drugs. He is taken to the security cells of a police station. The next day he appears at the hearing to validate the arrest with hematomas and difficulty walking. He speaks with difficulty: a recording released later testifies to the state of Cucchi at the hearing. The arrest is validated and Cucchi is taken to Regina Coeli.

Suspicious death
On 22 October, after a week of detention, Stefano Cucchi died in the protected department of the Sandro Pertini hospital. The judicial battle of the family begins which a week later spreads some shocked photos of the corpse in the morgue showing hematomas and 2sospetti signs ". We arrive at 25 January 2011, when six doctors and three nurses of Sandro Pertini and three prison guards go to trial. On 5 June 2013, four Pertini doctors were sentenced, with nurses and prison guards acquitted.

The appeal
On October 31st, 2014, all the doctors were acquitted on appeal, but in January 2015 the bis investigation was opened after the Court of Appeal transmitted the documents to the prosecutor's office for new investigations. In the same year, in September, the carabinieri entered the investigation for the first time: 5 were investigated. In December the Court of Cassation cancels the acquittal of Pertini's 5 doctors. They are again acquitted in 2016, but the Public Prosecutor appeals to the Court of Cassation for a new Appeal process.

The investigation bis
In January 2017, the Rome Public Prosecutor closes the investigation bis for which 5 carabinieri are now on trial. In July 2017, Alessio Di Bernardo, Raffaele D'Alessandro and Francesco Tedesco are indicted, accused of intentional homicide and abuse of authority. Tedesco is also accused of forgery and slander together with Marshal Roberto Mandolini, while the military Vincenzo Nicolardi answers only to the slander.

The story of the beating
On 11 October 2018 the prosecutor Giovanni Musarò reveals that the defendant Francesco Tedesco for the first time speaks of a beating suffered by Cucchi by his colleagues Di Berardo and D'Alessandro. The beating investigations had been reopened thanks to the words of another carabiniere, Riccardo Casamassima. During the process, alleged misleadings also emerge with the disappearance or alteration of service documents. General Alessandro Casarsa and 7 other carabinieri, including Lorenzo Sabatino, at the time commander of the Rome operations department, were put on trial as part of the investigation into misleading.

The new process
On October 3, 2019, the prosecutor asked for an 18-year sentence for the two carabinieri Alessio Di Bernardo and Raffaele D'Alessandro accused of the beating that was, for the first time, associated with the death of Cucchi. Today the sentence that gave justice to Stefano Cucchi