Reportage
Luigi Giacomo Passeri is on hunger strike after a year in Egyptian prison
The young Italian man managed to send a message last month he is on hunger strike. Italian authorities are mobilizing. The goal is to avoid another Salis case – or even another Regeni.
Luigi Giacomo Passeri, 31, has been locked up for almost a year in an Egyptian prison because he was found in possession of “a small amount of marijuana for personal use” during a tourist stay; subjected to preventive detention for six months and then to trial, with the last hearing postponed due to a lack of translators; “mistreated and tortured” in prison, and “abandoned for more than five months” to his fate by the Italian embassy in Cairo.
Passeri – with an Italian father and Sierra Leonean mother – has had no direct contact with his family since a few days after his arrest in Egypt on August 23, 2023.
In the last message he managed to send, on Sunday, June 16, 2024, to his mother and four older siblings (his father is deceased), he was mentally and physically exhausted, and finally announced that he had gone on hunger strike.
His story was reported by Abruzzo newspapers in recent days and came to the notice of Green-Left Alliance (AVS) Deputy Marco Grimaldi, who on Tuesday filed a request for a written response to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, demanding that “every form of assistance and support by the Italian Embassy in Egypt be guaranteed, the detainee's detention conditions and psychological and physical health be assessed,” and “a fair and just trial be guaranteed in a speedy manner, as well as making an active effort so that the young man can return to Italy soon.”
The goal is to avoid another Salis case – or even another Regeni. Reportedly, a few hours after the question was filed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Ambassador Michele Quaroni to intervene more vigorously in the case.
According to the AVS deputy's account, which was confirmed to il manifesto by the detainee's brother, Andrea Passeri, the family “has not been able to have direct contact with the young man since August 28, 2023,” except by letter, despite having learned that Luigi “was subjected to torture and, after surgery to remove his appendix, was abandoned without receiving proper medical care.”
The day after his arrest, Luigi was supposed to return to London, where he works and lives with his sister, while his other siblings and his mother live between Pescara, where the family moved in 1997 from Sierra Leone, Rome and the U.S.
The 31-year-old ended up in the “Correction and Rehabilitation Center” in Badr, 65 km east of Cairo, opened in 2022 by Al-Sisi to put a “human face” on the incarceration of Cairo inmates, but which only took a few months to acquire the same terrible reputation as the notorious Tora prison.
As Riccardo Noury, spokesperson for Amnesty International Italy, confirmed, this prison had been touted as the flagship of the Egyptian regime, “with Western standards of detention, but it turned out instead like all the others, with tens of thousands of detainees, gradually transferred from Tora, living in inhumane and degrading conditions.
Faced with the charge of “possession of narcotics with intent to distribute” formulated officially by the Cairo prosecutor's office, the only support Luigi Giacomo has is an Egyptian defense lawyer “who has already asked for $30,000 in fees, never visited the defendant in his cell (it’s possible that he was prevented from doing so, n.ed.), and has only been able to send a few documents and minutes written in Arabic,” which the family is still trying to get translated.
The Italian Embassy in Egypt (which in April inaugurated its new headquarters “at the majestic Nile City Tower,” as reported in the media), “was only able to make one visit to the prison to this point, in February 2024,” while “from the few letters that the young man has been able to send to family members, it is clear that his psychological and physical condition is worsening and the family fears that Luigi may commit acts of self-harm.”
In the meantime, after a couple of trial hearings, postponed because some prosecution witnesses failed to appear before the judge, “the last hearing on May 22, 2024 did not get anything done due to the absence of an interpreter.”
The hearing was postponed until late August, with sentencing likely. Andrea Passeri is in fear for his brother's life: “We have not seen him or spoken to him on the phone. We have only received two letters that made us seriously worry about his condition. Another brother of mine has made a request to visit him in prison but has been waiting for a month and a half for a response.”
The family has started a fundraiser on GoFundMe to be able to cover the legal fees.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/luigi-in-sciopero-della-fame-dopo-un-anno-in-cella-al-cairo on 2024-07-10