Three people who are suspected of the homicide of Willy Monteiro Duarte, a 21-year-old who was beaten to death at Colleferro, near Rome, earlier this month, have requested to be put in isolation in a protected wing of Rome's Rebibbia jail because they fear being attacked by other inmates, officials have confirmed.
The case has shocked Italy and Premier Giuseppe Conte attended Monteiro Duarte's funeral on Saturday.
The charges the suspects face were upped from manslaughter to murder last week on the basis of eye-witness accounts of the brutality of the attack.
Monteiro Duarte was allegedly attacked by the suspects, brothers Gabriele and Marco Bianchi, Mario Pincarelli, and Francesco Belleggia, after trying to defend a friend of his from their alleged brutality.
The brothers and Pincarelli are in jail while Belleggia is under house arrest.
The Bianchi brothers are mixed-martial arts specialists who had allegedly been involved in street violence before.
In the warrant upholding the arrests, a witness is quoted as saying: "I saw a large car arrived. Five people got out and started hitting anyone who came within range with kicks and punches, and then they started concentrating on Willy".
The eye witness went on: "While he was on the ground they kept unleashing kicks and punches, and he was unable to get back up".
Another witness told the judge: "I have a vivid memory of a couple of them, I don't remember who precisely, who were actually jumping up and down on Willy's helpless body on the ground".
The judge wrote that there was "no plausible reason" for the attack and Willy was targeted only because he had happened to be in the initial fight, defending his friend.
The two brothers said they were innocent.
"We didn't touch him," the Bianchis told the preliminary investigations judge in a hearing.
"We reject all the accusations. "We intervened to break it up.
We saw a brawl and we came.
"We are saddened and we are devastated because we are accused of a homicide we did not commit". Monteiro Duarte, who had only recently become an Italian citizen, was from Paliano near Frosinone, between Rome and Naples. His four alleged assailants are from the nearby town of Artena.
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