Violence in prison
“The officers entered the cell, made us undress and do push-ups, then threatened one of us to insert the baton into an intimate area if he didn’t hand over the cellphone. We closed ourselves off and that threat remained just that.” It is a shocking but also full of “I don’t remember” and “first times” story told by the inmate De Novellis, a victim of beatings in April 2020 at the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison (Caserta).
De Novellis was heard as a witness in the trial before the Court of Assizes of the Santa Maria Capua Vetere court, which is taking place in the bunker courtroom attached to the prison. The witness – who has filed a civil lawsuit, is currently still incarcerated but in another prison – also reports that a prisoner had “his teeth broken with punches”.
He recognizes for the first time in the courtroom two prison officers who, according to him, used violence against the inmates; he had never recognized them after the events. These are the defendants Claudio Di Siero and Raffaele Piccolo; a total of 105 defendants including prison officers, officials from the Department of Penitentiary Administration, and doctors from the Local Health Authority.
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