Santa Maria Capua Vetere – A series of omissions, incomplete reporting, and a systematic underestimation of what happened within the walls of the "Nile" unit. In the bunker courtroom of the Santa Maria Capua Vetere courthouse, before the Assize Court, it's Francesca Acerra's day.
The former commander of the Regional Investigative Unit (NIR) of the Penitentiary Police, called to answer for aiding and abetting, forgery, procedural fraud, and failure to report, attempted to explain the information "blackout" that allegedly enveloped the top brass of the Campania Penitentiary Authority following the events of April 6, 2020.
The rubber wall of information
Although the prosecutor's office had assigned her to investigate as early as April 17, the defendant admitted she hadn't grasped the gravity of the situation. "The complaints started coming in," she explained in response to prosecutor Alessandro Milita, "but Fullone (then the regional superintendent) told me he'd learned from Colucci that the inmates were slandering."
According to Acerra's version, Pasquale Colucci, commander of the Support Group who intervened during the search, verbally assured her that "nothing had happened in his presence." If any force had been used, it would have been merely "containment operations" against troublemaking inmates, who were then transferred to the Danubio unit.
The silence of the NIR and the alibi of Covid
Presiding Judge Picciotti pressed the defendant on the appropriateness of such conduct, pointing out that the NIR is precisely the section that should handle internal judicial investigations. Acerra's defense entrenched itself behind the exceptional nature of the historical moment: "At that time, there was no normality; we were in the midst of the Covid emergency."
The former commander reiterated that she was not present during the beatings and that she based her (lack of) information solely on internal documents produced by those who had managed the operation on the ground. This reconstruction is firmly contested by the Prosecutor's Office, alleging a deliberate attempt to mislead the investigation to cover up the scale of the punitive action, which involved approximately 300 inmates.
The drama of the "savior" agent who ended up in jail
The hearing was emotionally charged with the testimony of Angelo Bruno, a retired police officer initially arrested for the events of April 6th. Bruno, who ended up in prison despite having already been discharged from the force for health reasons, recounted the dramatic episode involving inmate Ciro Esposito.
Footage from internal security cameras confirmed the officer's version: Bruno did not participate in the beating, but attempted to shield the inmate while his colleagues beat him with shields and truncheons.
"The Carabinieri Brigadier General wrote that I was holding the prisoner down, but it was the other way around. Because of that mistake, I ended up in jail and lost everything, including my wife," the man said through tears. An investigative error that casts a further shadow over the handling of the first months of the investigation into what has been described as "a horrible massacre."
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Comments (1)
The article provides a lot of sobering information about the prison situation in Italy. It's important to know what happens inside, but I wonder if there will be justice for the inmates and those who work there.