Prosecutors seek measures against 29 guards over jail abuse

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 2 - Prosecutors in Naples have appealed against a judge's decision to deny arrest warrants and residence bans they had requested against 29 police officers in connection with an alleged rampage of violence to punish inmates for rioting at the prison of Santa Maria Capua Vetere in 2020 during the Covid lockdown.
    Preliminary investigations judge (GIP) Alessia Stadio rejected the requests - a decision appealed by prosecutors to the re-examination court in Naples.
    Overcrowding and COVID fears sparked riots in several prisons at the height of the first lockdown in spring 2020, when many inmates were hurt, and some died, mainly from overdoses of drugs pillaged from jail infirmaries. GIP Alessia Stadio wrote in a measure released Friday in which she rejected the pre-trial measures for the officers that they are "not criminals but members of the security forces who, in an event that was as brutal as exceptional, committed or helped commit the dramatic facts for which we are proceeding".
    The judge noted that the officers had acted under orders of their superiors and that they were thus unlikely to reiterate similar acts against detainees especially since "similar conducts have not been reported over the past four years", concluded the judge.
    According to investigators, the 29 officers took part in the violence at the prison of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, near Caserta, on April 6, 2020. The violence allegedly involved as many as 280 prison guards, including 150 police officers.
    The first part of the investigation into the violence has led to a trial that kicked off in November 2022 against police officers, officials with the department of penitentiary administration and doctors working for the local ASL health authorities.
    The trial is still ongoing. (ANSA).