Violence in the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison: Former superintendent charged: "The search was legitimate."

Not a punitive raid against inmates, but an intervention deemed essential to restore order at a time of high tension in Italian prisons, marked by riots related to the Covid lockdown. This is the defense line put forward in court by Antonio Fullone, former prison administrator in Campania, a defendant in the maxi-trial into the violence that occurred on April 6, 2020, in the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison.

Before the panel of judges, Fullone explained that the search of the Nile unit, where approximately 300 inmates were subjected to checks that later degenerated into beatings and abuse, was intended to restore the facility's security. The former director is facing charges of unlawful searches, misdirection, forgery, and disclosure of official secrets.

According to the investigation, hundreds of prison officers took part in the operation, including members of support units from other prisons in Campania. An operational group was apparently organized centrally and led in the field by an official, who is also accused. Fullone, however, maintained that he was unaware that some officers had entered the facility with helmets, shields, and batons. He claimed that he first saw the images of the violence only months later, when they were shown to him by the Prosecutor's Office.

This version of events prompted a reaction from prosecutors, who emphasized that in the days immediately following the events, there had already been public discussion of violence, with complaints filed by the prisoners' ombudsman and meetings between inmates' families and prison management. The president of the panel also recalled this context, emphasizing how the incident had already been widely publicized in the days following the operation.

Fullone reiterated that he had not sought clarification from his collaborators and that he had only made public statements to deny the reconstruction of a punitive expedition, referring instead to objects seized during a search that, he claimed, was part of the measures necessary to ensure order and security in the penitentiary.