In bookshops, the story of Beniamino Zuncheddu: 'I am innocent'

'I am innocent' is the title of the book written in four hands by Beniamino Zuncheddu and Mauro Trogu: the story of a man unjustly imprisoned for 33 years and the lawyer who fought for his freedom. A tale in two voices, Beniamino's and his lawyer's, which tells the painful story of the Sardinian shepherd unjustly imprisoned at only 26 years of age, sentenced to life imprisonment for a triple murder he never committed in the mountains of Sinnai. A man who remained behind bars as an innocent man for almost 33 years. A decisive intervention was that of the lawyer Mauro Trogu who, without ever giving up, accompanied Beniamino through the revision process, up to his acquittal for not having committed the fact. The book, published by DeAgostini, is presented in Rome at the Borri Books bookshop at Termini Station.

Mauro Trogu will now also follow Beniamino in the compensation case. He is the lawyer who believed in Beniamino's innocence and fought to prove his extraneousness to the facts. Beniamino had been sentenced to life imprisonment in a hurry. An offender was sought, not the guilty party. Beniamino with his lawyer Trogu faced two court battles, on the one hand the revision process, on the other the proceedings to obtain conditional release (which came only a month before the acquittal). 'With the book,' explains lawyer Mauro Trogu, 'we thought of making a contribution to the discussion on justice in Italy. The young Sardinian lawyer based his work on a very important precept, learnt at Professor Leonardo Filippi's first lesson in procedural law: 'If you want to understand criminal procedure, you have to imagine yourself wearing the prisoner's striped pyjamas, and from that perspective ask yourself whether the laws appear right or wrong'. And Trogu advises readers to read the story while wearing striped pyjamas. Because what happened to Beniamino could affect any of us.

Beniamino Zuncheddu's is the most serious miscarriage of justice in Italy, caused by a labyrinth of lies, false testimonies, and recantations, as also recounted in the podcast of the Sole 24 Ore and Radio 24 'Innocente'. Beniamino was acquitted on 26 January 2024 for not having committed the crime by the judges of the Rome Court of Appeal at the end of the revision process. The judges in Rome also ordered the transmission of the acts to the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Rome in relation to three testimonies given in the courtroom: that of the former policeman who was in charge of the investigation at the time, Mario Uda, that of Daniela Fadda (wife of the witness Luigi Pinna) and the other witness Paolo Melis.

'Watching my trial from a cage in the courtroom of the Cagliari Court of Appeal,' Beniamino recounts in the book, 'was like watching it on television. It seemed unreal to me. Everything: the accusations, the motive, the testimonies'. A man who in the hard years behind bars has always shown great dignity. And even feels not anger, but pity, towards Luigi Pinna, who lied about recognising the murderer and sent him behind bars for almost 33 years. "I just thought: poor guy, even for him this is a bad story. I think so even now. I think of everything he carried inside." The other witness, Paolo Melis, said he saw Beniamino threaten Giuseppe Fadda, one of the three victims. 'All I can say is that it was not me, also because I have never had cows. On the contrary, I think this never happened and that it was a set-up by those who wanted to make me a scapegoat'.

Beniamino was arrested on 28 February 1991, while he was following Sanremo with his family. More than a month after the triple murder that took place in the sheepfold of Cuile is Coccus. The words with which the former Sardinian shepherd recalls the arrest and interrogation in the book are very touching. They took him to the police station, made him sit on a chair in a garage where there was only a small table. 'The back of the chair,' Beniamino writes in the book, 'was leaning against a radiator. They took a pair of handcuffs, put one on my right wrist and the other they attached to the radiator pipe, high up. So my arm remained high above my head, as if I was waving. And, in fact, I was waving goodbye to freedom for thirty-two years. They were just checks, they said. You can tell they did them right, because they lasted 33 and a half years'. Since then, Benianimo has been in prison for 32 years, 8 months and 23 days, From the beginning to the end, he writes, I only asked myself one question. Why? And he still wonders today that he is a free man again and awaits from the State the compensation due to a man who has not been able to have a family, a job and a pension.