CONTROVERSY RAGES OVER ITALY JAIL DEATH
CONTROVERSY RAGES OVER ITALY JAIL DEATH
(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Controversy raged in Italy on Friday over a man who died of injuries after eight days in police custody.
Stefano Cucchi, 31, was arrested on October 16 for possession of a small amount of drugs and jailed in Rome's Regina Coeli prison.
Cucchi's parents said he was in perfectly good health the day he was arrested, but appeared at a court hearing the next day with black eyes and his face covered with bruises.
Despite being caught with a relatively small amount of drugs, Cucchi was not released from jail but admitted to a prison hospital to be treated for his injuries.
His parents claim they were not allowed to see him during his six days in hospital and were denied information regarding his condition.
Cucchi died during the night between October 22 and 23.
His parents were called in to identify the body and said their son's face was ''devastated''.
News of Cucchi's death met with outcries of indignation from across party lines with politicians and human rights advocates demanding an investigation.
On Thursday, Cucchi's family allowed pictures of their son's battered face to be posted on the internet, following claims by Justice Minister Angelino Alfano that Cucchi's injuries were most likely the result of an ''accidental fall down the stairs''.
According to the family's lawyer, Fabio Anselmo, a preliminary post-mortem ruled out that any of Cucchi's injuries, including two broken vertebrae, were fatal but that blood in his stomach and urethra suggested damage to internal organs.
Anselmo also confirmed that Cucchi was an epileptic.
Prison officials on Thursday announced that they had launched an internal inquiry into his death.
Prison guards' union Osapp on Friday reacted with outrage to the controversy, saying that ''Cucchi suffered his injuries before arriving in jail'' and that he had a medical certificate affirming that he was in good enough health to be detained.
The OSAPP said members were ''ready to let heads roll'' should any be implicated in Cucchi's death.
Responding to the indirect implication that the Carabinieri police who arrested Cucchi might have been responsible for his injuries, Defense Minister Ignazio Russa declared Friday that ''I am sure that on this occasion the officers behaved correctly''.
Another prison guard's union, Sappe, replied to criticism that Cucchi's family was prevented from visiting him in the hospital, underlining that he was still in a detention center and that the same rules applied there as in prison.
''It's important to reject the negative image given by the media about the work of prison guards, who on average save ten inmates a month from taking their own lives,'' Sappe said.
But criminal lawyers union Camera Penale said Friday that ''it simply should not have been permitted for Cucchi to die under such awful circumstances while in the custody of Italian police''. Photo: an image of Cucchi's injuries
