Some 23 Italian prison officers were
suspended on Thursday on suspicion of 'torturing' three inmates
in a jail at the northern city of Biella, in the latest case of
severe mistreatment of prisoners in Italy.
23 Biella Prison officers were suspended from duty, in execution
of an order from a preliminary hearings judge, for the crime of
state torture, committed inside the prison against three
inmates, judicial sources said.
They stand accused of using "cruel methods" which caused "undue
physical suffering" to the three prisoners.
There have been several recent cases of mistreatment of
prisoners in Italian jails.
Some 45 people including prison officers, doctors, officials and
interim wardens of Ivrea Prison in northwestern Italy have been
placed under investigation on suspicion of beating and
'torturing' inmates at the jail north of Turin, judicial sources
said recently.
They may face charges of torture with physical and psychological
violence against numerous prisoners, making false public
statements and correlated crimes, the sources said.
The alleged cases of violence against inmates took place on 10
occasions between 2015 and 2016, Ivrea's prisoner guarantor
said.
Prisoners were frequently beaten with kicks, punches and
truncheons, he said.
When the inmates ended up in the infirmary, complicit doctors
allegedly drew up false reports that they had sustained their
injuries after slipping in their cells or the showers, the
guarantor said.
Warders also allegedly claimed the prisoners were self-harming
and their bruises proved it.
Ivrea is not the first Italian prison where inmates have been
allegedly brutalised.
In July all 105 prison officers, penitentiary officials and
local health agency officials were sent to trial over a brutal
punitive raid on inmates at a prison at Santa Maria Capua Vetere
near Caserta north of Naples on 6 April 2020.
The trial into the violence, which was meted out as punishment
for a riot, began on November 7.
Guards allegedly went on a rampage of violence to punish inmates
for rioting.
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.
The defendants are accused of crimes include torture, abuse of
authority, making false declarations and cooperation in the
culpable homicide of an Algerian prisoner.
A preliminary investigations judge (GIP) said prisoners were
made to strip and kneel and beaten with guards wearing their
helmets so as not to be identified in what he called "a horrible
massacre".
Some 15 men were also put into solitary without any
justification, the GIP said.
Police reportedly found chats on the suspects' phones including,
before the alleged violence, saying "We'll kill them like veal
calves" and "tame the beasts", and afterwards, saying "four
hours of hell for them", "no one got away", and "(we used) the
Poggioreale system", referring to a tough Naples prison.
Some of the alleged rioters had their hair cut and beards shaved
off.
Outgoing Justice Minister Marta Cartabia has said that CCTV
footage of the violence showed that the officers had betrayed
the Italian Constitution.
Last November, in the most recent case, six Italian prison
officers including the head warder at Reggio Calabria Prison
were arrested for 'torturing' an inmate at the southern Italian
jail.
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