When a national lockdown was imposed in Italy in March of last year, the country's prisons were raging. Mutinies broke out in a good two dozen prisons during the strict lockdown until the end of May. There was a lack of masks, disinfectants, and all kinds of protective equipment in the overcrowded institutions. In addition, the authorities had suspended all family visits for fear of the virus spreading rapidly in the cells. Fourteen prisoners died in the mutinies, most of them from drug overdoses stolen from detention center pharmacies. 41 law enforcement officers were injured, some seriously. According to the conviction of the judicial authorities, many prisoner revolts were instigated by mafia bosses - by those behind bars, but apparently also by clan chiefs outside the prison walls.There was also a revolt in the penal institution of Santa Maria Capua Vetere near Naples. The retaliation of the guards at the time has now sparked a prison scandal.
Matthias Rüb
Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.
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Pierced recordings from surveillance cameras in the prison on April 6, 2020, published on Wednesday by the daily Domani, document brutal crackdowns against prisoners. The day before, there had been protests in this overcrowded detention center after an inmate tested positive for the coronavirus. On the six-minute long recordings of various surveillance cameras - from common rooms, corridors and stairwells - dozens of prison guards can be seen indiscriminately treating prisoners: with clubs, kicks and bare hands. The tortured prisoners are obviously defenseless, some limp, others bend over in pain, all of them hold their arms protectively over their heads.Some officers of the "Polizia Penitenziaria" wear riot police equipment with helmets, protective shields and boots, others only wear a mouth and nose mask and rubber gloves.
Investigator: Coordinated cover-up strategy
Investigators at the Santa Maria Capua Vetere public prosecutor's office started investigations a good year ago after complaints from prisoners and their relatives about the excesses of violence became known. The prosecutors now have a thick dossier of testimony, diagnoses from doctors, text messages from cell phones and video recordings from prison. "Tomorrow, with a wrench and pickaxe, we will slaughter them like calves," said one of the accused guards in a WhatsApp message on the eve of the apparently planned retaliation for the mutiny. The public prosecutor is convinced that a report by the officials about the incidents, according to which it was triggered by violent resistance from the inmates,is the product of a coordinated cover-up strategy.
A total of 117 members of the prison police and the administration of the detention center were reported. 52 officers were arrested or placed under house arrest earlier this week. The head of the prison administration of the Campania region has been suspended from duty. The allegations are of grievous bodily harm, torture and excessive use of force, as well as abuse of office, false testimony and the destruction and manipulation of evidence. The responsible investigating judge has castigated the incidents as "terrible slaughter", the incidents in the prison are unworthy of a civilized European country.
The publication of the surveillance camera footage, apparently punctured by investigators to the press, has also sparked a political debate about the incidents. The Social Democrats involved in the government coalition under Prime Minister Mario Draghi demand that Justice Minister Marta Cartabia must be available to answer questions in parliament. The independent lawyer, once president of the Supreme Court, has described the events in the prison near Naples as "serious" and a "betrayal of the constitution". The minister, who has only been in office since February, bears no personal responsibility for the prison scandal of April 2020. But as employer of the prison police she is politically responsible for the behavior of “her” law enforcement officers.The then Justice Minister Bonafede had described the events of April 6, 2020 at a hearing in parliament at the time as an “appropriate measure to restore law and order in the entire department”.
Matteo Salvini, party leader of the right-wing national Lega, visited the prison near Naples on Thursday. "If someone has made a mistake, he must rightly pay for it," said the former interior minister: "But I trust our women and men in uniform." officials reported had been published on the front page of a local newspaper on Tuesday. You treat civil servants "worse than mafiosi and murderers," scolded Salvini. Enrico Letta, party leader of the Social Democrats, described Salvini's behavior as scandalous. Anyone who trivializes alleged crimes such as those in the prison of Santa Maria Capua Vetere and shows political solidarity with their authors is putting the rule of law at risk.