The Santa Maria prison violence trial: "I attacked two inmates, but I defended dozens."

Naples – The maxi-trial for the abuses in the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison is entering its climax. One of the key defendants, the man whose surname lends its title to the investigation involving 105 people, including officers, officials, and doctors, has taken the stand: Salvatore Mezzarano, an inspector in the Nilo Ward at the time of the events (April 6, 2020).

His testimony is tense, ambiguous, poised between admission of guilt and self-defense. Before the judges and prosecutors, Mezzarano doesn't deny the chaos of that day: "I saw friction, even degeneration, and total confusion."

Admission and justification

Pressed by prosecutor Alessandro Milita, Mezzarano outlined his responsibilities, admitting to two specific incidents but downplaying their significance. "I hit an inmate on the buttock," he confessed. "For a second inmate, I slammed my truncheon on the ground near his feet."

Immediately, however, comes the justification and apology, addressed also directly to the prosecutor: "I apologize for what I did, even to you, doctor. But they were dissuasive gestures, which I also made out of a misunderstanding of the situation. My actions were not intended to cause harm."

His defense, in fact, is based on a reversal of the accusation. While many inmates initially labeled him one of the most violent, the inspector now counters: "But I've defended dozens of people, I can swear to that."

The mystery of the "misdirection"

A crucial point in the trial is the alleged "misdirection": the discovery of sticks and offensive objects in the cells, which, according to the prosecution, served to justify ex post the "extraordinary search" that later degenerated into a massacre.

Mezzarano offers a different version.

The shocking message: "Use boiling oil."

The courtroom held its breath when it came to a message received by Mezzarano on April 8, two days after the events, from Commissioner Anna Rita Costanzo (also a defendant, but who exercised her right to remain silent).

Mezzarano confirms the allegations: the commissioner "asked him to do illegal things." The content is chilling. "It was a stupid message," the inspector recalls, "like pouring boiling oil. But I didn't follow up on it." A statement that, if confirmed, would cast an even darker shadow over the climate of those days.

"Officers with a propensity for violence"

The inspector, who served over four months in prison for these crimes, points the finger at his colleagues who came from outside. The search, he explains, was carried out primarily by officers wearing helmets and carrying truncheons from other prisons in Campania (Secondigliano and Avellino), led by director Colucci.

Mezzarano says he immediately noticed that the latter had "a bad attitude, authoritarian, with a propensity for violence." And why didn't he report anything? "The managers were there; they were supposed to coordinate the bureaucratic side of things. I assumed they would."

The defensive strategy: 14 videos to support it

Mezzarano's testimony isn't just words. During cross-examination, his defense attorneys, Giuseppe Stellato and Edoardo Razzino, played their strongest card. They uncovered 14 specific incidents, "tracked" and documented both by internal prison videos and by statements from other inmates, in which the inspector allegedly actively assisted the victims, in some cases physically interposing himself between them and the external officers, those "with helmets and truncheons," who brutalized the inmates.

Inspector Mezzarano, then, executioner or protector? His testimony leaves many questions unanswered, presenting the court with a complex and contradictory portrait, a reflection of the "degeneration" he himself admitted to having witnessed.