Reggio Emilia prison violence 'unacceptable' - Piantedosi

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 10 - Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Saturday that a video allegedly showing an inmate at Reggio Emilia being beaten by guards is "unacceptable".
    The video, showing the violence inflicted on a 43-year-old Tunisian detainee on 3 April in a corridor of the jail, was presented among the evidence filed by prosecutors after they concluded a criminal probe into 10 prison guards. Eight of the guards are accused of the crime of torture.
    The footage, taken by cameras inside the prison, shows the man, hooded with a pillowcase, tripped over, punched in the face and on the side, stamped on with boots and held down for minutes by his arms and legs by prison officers.
    He was then stripped naked and, still hooded, dragged into his cell.
    "While everything has to be established in the competent fora, and so making very clear judgments in advance is always something that has to be done with care, it is obvious that such things are not acceptable," Piantedosi said during a visit to Imola.
    "Whenever a person is confined, under the supervision of State bodies, the dignity of that person must be ensured twice as much as with respect to normal conditions".
    Ilaria Cucchi, a Senator for the Green/Left Alliance, said she visited the prison last spring and "found inmates in inhuman conditions: some with their own excrement in the same cell.
    "The problem generally concerns new arrivals, those who are also more exposed to the risk of suicide," added Cucchi, who came to national prominence during her campaign for justice for her brother Stefano, who died in custody in 2009 after being the victim of police brutality.
    The prisoner who suffered the beating in Reggio Emilia told investigators that he feared "that it will happen again", sources said.
    "I can't sleep because I think back to how afraid I was to die and to all that force and violence that was used against me while I was on the ground and handcuffed," the inmate said.
    (ANSA).