A wheelchair-bound former inmate of a
jail near Naples where police are accused of brutality in
'punishing' a COVID protest last year said Thursday that even
the female warden had wielded a baton and that he had been the
first to be pulled out of his cell during the alleged assault.
"I can't think about it again, I'll go to the madhouse. I think
they were high, they were all with batons, even the female
warden," said the man, Vincenzo Cacace, who left the prison at
Santa Maria Capua Vetere a few months after the alleged violence
in Italy's first lockdown in April last year.
"I was the first to be pulled out of my cell because I'm in a
wheelchair," he went on.
"They massacred us, they killed one lad. They abused one inmate
with a truncheon. They destroyed me, mentally they killed me.
They wanted to strip us of our dignity but we kept it.
They are the criminals because they want to command in jail. We
have to pay, that is only right but we mustn't pay with our
lives. I want to report them because I want (them to pay) moral
damages".
Some 52 prison officers arrested on suspicion of mistreating
prisoners after the riot sparked by a case of COVID-19 among
inmates in the middle of the first virus lockdown last year have
all been suspended, sources said Wednesday.
Naples police sent in special penitentiary police forces after
the April 6 riot at the jail at Santa Maria Capua Vetere near
Caserta north of Naples. The special forces are suspected of
brutality and may also face charges of torture in the methods
used to 'punish' the rioters, judicial sources said.
Warder unions SPP and USPP have called the arrests
"disproportionate" and "incomprehensible" while nationalist
League party leader Matteo Salvini has said he stands with the
penitentiary police. However, he added Thursday that "if someone
did wrong then he must pay".
Centre-left Democratic Party (PD( leader Enrico Letta said
reports of the violence had revealed "intolerable" conduct by
the officers. Inmates rights group Antigone said full light must
be shed on the violence.
A preliminary investigations judge (GIP) said prisoners were
made to strip and kneel and beaten with guards wearing their
helmets so as not to be identified in what he called "a horrible
massacre". Some 15 men were also put into solitary without any
justification, the GIP said. Police reportedly found chats on
the suspects' phones including, before the alleged violence,
"We'll kill them like veal calves" and "tame the beasts", and
afterwards "four hours of hell for them", "no one got away", and
"(we used) the Poggioreale system", referring to a tough Naples
prison. Some of the alleged rioters had their hair cut and
beards shaved off.
Among those probed are doctors who falsely certified that some
warders had been hurt in the clashes. Justice Minister Marta
Cartabia has said she had "faith" in Italy's penitentiary police
but on Wednesday said a probe would be opened into the alleged
brutality. She said that CCTV footage of the violence showed
that the officers had betrayed the Italian Constitution.
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