Report
11 guards arrested for torture at an Italian prison
With hidden cameras, investigators uncovered torture and abuse at Trapani prison in Sicily. The 157-page judge’s order is a horror story, recounting endless torture, beatings and threats against the inmates.
The guards threw him to the floor, put a sheet on top of him and beat him to a pulp: “This one’s black anyway, no one’s going to see shit,” they laughed. They cracked jokes at a foreigner whom they forced to walk naked in the hallway, slapping him and taunting him about the size of his genitals. They thew buckets filled with urine mixed with water on detainees, kicked them, punched them, illegally searched them, humiliated them in every way.
The 157-page order signed by examining judge Giancarlo Caruso is a horror story, recounting endless torture, beatings and threats against the inmates in Trapani prison. At the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the examining judge ordered house arrest for 11 prison police officers and immediate suspension for 14 others.
They were caught thanks to hidden camera footage and bugs planted by the investigators, who captured the torture and recorded the conversations of the thugs in uniform who terrorized the “blue ward” of the prison, where the solitary confinement cells are located: 16 cells, each measuring 2 meters by 4, also featuring a “smooth” one without any furnishings intended for those on suicide watch.
The still images included in the judge's order leave no doubt about the violent methods of the officers involved in this affair; in a recording, one of those arrested even admitted to a colleague that he had beaten inmates with the same methods when he served at Ivrea prison. The investigators accused the guards of “inhuman treatment that violates human dignity.”
People had been talking about the “hell” in the “blue ward” at Trapani for some time, but no one had gone so far as to put it all down in black and white in front of the magistrates.
One inmate did so on Sept. 17, 2021: after a protest, he was punished, taken to the isolation section, beaten up with kicks and punches and spit on. He also reported that he heard another inmate in the next cell screaming while he was being beaten. He gave the names of the violent guards and confirmed their identities from a photo line-up, while he also stressed that not all the guards were like that: “there are also officers who behave like decent family men.” Video cameras planted by prosecutors captured abuse over several years, and the wiretaps were the last piece of the puzzle: “I would have slaughtered him, dude, like I did the others,” says one of the arrested officers on a wiretap after an inmate had attacked one of his colleagues. “Water buckets. It's hot out, we’re doing him a favor, really,” commented another.
One of the shocking still frames shows a naked man in the hallway while another inmate is being frisked with his arms pinned behind his back. One of the victims was allegedly given a cigarette laced with a drug, probably a tranquilizer, while one officer sounded worried about what it would do to the victim's health. There was no trace of the violence in the official reports the guards filed: investigators found that they recounted false versions of events to their superiors, in which only the inmates had behaved badly.
In the recorded conversations, the violent guards also expressed impatience with their superiors because, according to them, they didn’t punish inmates severely enough when they protested or were found in possession of cell phones or other items. The officers were even ready to do violence to the doctors at the correctional facility: “If they get in the way, fuck up the doctors too,” reads one wiretap. One of the officers arrested proposed that they set up a “squad” of six people. “As soon as something happens, we go right up to the ward,” he threatened. “Should I throw a bucket of water on him? Mixed with piss,” said another. Urine was thrown into the cells after the power was cut off, to catch the inmates by surprise. The victims confirmed everything, and investigators found all the allegations credible.
“The victims have an attitude of commendable equanimity and don’t show resentment,” the examining judge wrote. “In the blue ward, which has been closed due to sanitary deficiencies, inmates with psychiatric or psychological problems were brought and subjected to violence and torture. Some officers acted with violence, not occasionally but with a sort of method aiming to ensure order,” said Chief Prosecutor Gabriele Paci. Senator Ilaria Cucchi (AVS) pointed out that “there is no region in Italy where there are no bad apples among the prison police, accused of abuse and violent behavior against inmates. And these ‘few rotten apples’ spoil the whole bunch. After yet another investigation by the judiciary that led to house arrest for 11 officers and suspension from duty for 14 others, is Undersecretary Delmastro still experiencing ‘profound joy’ [at violent measures against detained protesters, as he was recently quoted]? It's time to say no more torture in prison.”
AVS called on Justice Minister Nordio to intervene, “but above all, we’re calling on the majority to put a break on the provisions of the security bill, which will worsen the situation in prisons.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/trapani-il-carcere-degli-orrori-11-agenti-arrestati-per-tortura on 2024-11-21