Naples – On June 25, a gunshot shattered the silence in the parking lot of the Secondigliano prison in Naples. The man who pulled the trigger was Benito Pacca, a 59-year-old prison police officer, one step away from retirement.
An extreme, sudden act that left colleagues and family members in pain and dismay. Pacca, as he confided to friends, was "disturbed." The reason for his distress had a name and a number: the investigation by the Santa Maria Capua Vetere Public Prosecutor's Office into the beatings of April 6, 2020, in the city's prison, where he was listed as a suspect for abuse of authority.
He professed his innocence and hoped to be released soon. Now, months later, that hope has transformed into a sentence he will never know.
Archiving comes after death
Yesterday, December 5, the decision of the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Santa Maria Capua Vetere was learned: the cases against 18 prison officers under investigation in the so-called "second strand" of the investigation have been closed.
Among them is Benito Pacca. The request was filed by the Prosecutor's Office on August 1st. The magistrate believes there are no grounds for proceeding against them. For the Secondigliano officer, it's a sort of posthumous acquittal that, however, doesn't erase the tragedy of a shattered life and the unresolved reasons that haunt his decision.
Hell's Day: April 6, 2020, Prison Lockdown
To understand the scope of the case, we need to go back to the height of the first, claustrophobic Covid-19 lockdown. On April 6, 2020, in the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison, an extraordinary search was ordered in the "Nile" section, which housed approximately three hundred inmates.
To carry it out, a massive deployment of forces was mobilized: approximately three hundred officers. Among them were not only the facility's permanent staff, but also members of the Operational Support Group (GOS), seconded from other prisons in Campania, primarily Secondigliano and Avellino. What was supposed to be a search escalated into hours of violence. According to the charges, the inmates were led through a "human corridor" of officers who beat and battered them for nearly two hours.
The two strands of the investigation and the maxi-trial
The investigation by prosecutors Alessandro Milita, Daniela Pannone, and Alessandra Pinto developed along two distinct tracks. The first focused on officers permanently employed in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, identified primarily through internal surveillance cameras (many, in the midst of the pandemic, were not wearing masks or helmets).
This gave rise to the maxi-trial still underway before the Assize Court: 105 defendants, mostly police officers, but also officials of the Department of Penitentiary Administration and doctors, accused of crimes ranging from abuse of authority to torture.
The second strand of investigation involved "external" agents, those from the GOS, who were more difficult to identify because they were often covered by helmets and masks. In the end, the investigation identified around fifty of them. A preliminary hearing will begin on January 29th before preliminary hearing judge Angela Mennella (the "twin trial"). For the remaining 18, including Pacca, the preliminary hearing judge dismissed the case.
The union's voice: "Memory, dignity, and media trials"
"His tragic passing is still an open wound." With empathetic words, union representatives Ciro Auricchio (USPP regional secretary) and Giuseppe Moretti (USPP national president) commented on Pacca's dismissal. They called for "his memory to be preserved" and for his "human and professional value" to be recognized.
The statement, however, goes beyond the individual case and launches a more general appeal: "Approach the matter with the utmost respect and balance, without preconceptions." The two union leaders point the finger at "summary media trials" which, they say, "can cause harm to individuals and their families," pillorying workers who work in "extremely complex contexts."
The "twin trial" and the wait for next January 29th
While the maxi-trial in the Santa Maria Capua Vetere bunker has been going on for three years, the first hearing of its "twin" is approaching. On January 29th, the preliminary hearing judge will examine the positions of the 32 GOS officers indicted for trial. All are charged with abuse of authority; around twenty are also facing the aggravating circumstance of torture.
Five of them are also charged with false medical reports, having obtained medical documents certifying assaults suffered by inmates in order to justify their intervention. This trial promises to be equally delicate and complex, and the defendants' defense could leverage the statements of their colleagues from the first trial, who repeatedly identified external agents as the most violent.
A mosaic of pain still incomplete
The story of the April 6, 2020, violence remains a painful and fragmented mosaic. On one side, the suffering of inmates reporting beatings. On the other, the shattered lives of officers, with a dire toll like that of Benito Pacca. The closures close a chapter for some, but not for justice, which continues its work through the two trials.
And not for the penitentiary institution, called to reckon with one of the darkest chapters in its recent history, between extremely serious accusations, corporate defenses, and the need for truth and justice in an environment that is by its very nature opaque and under extreme stress. The Secondigliano gun took a life, but it also shone a spotlight on a collective tragedy that still awaits full, difficult redress.
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Comments (1)
This story is truly sad and makes us reflect on how stressful and pressured situations can lead to extreme behavior. It would be important to pay more attention to the mental health of officers, especially in challenging environments like prison.