Italy sentenced for 41-bis to 90-year-old Mafia boss with Alzheimer's disease

The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Italy for continuing to keep Italy under the del 41bis the 90-year-old Giuseppe Morabito, former number one of the 'ndrangheta - also known as u tiradrittu "straight shooter" -, who has been diagnosed with progressivecognitive deterioration. The ECHR "is not convinced that the Government has convincingly demonstrated that, in the particular circumstances of this case, the extended application of the 41bis regime was sufficiently justified".

The Strasbourg judges thus found a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits subjecting anyone to inhuman and degrading treatment. The judgment specifies that 'the Court does not see how a person suffering from an undisputed cognitive decline - and even diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease - and unable to understand his own conduct or to follow a judicial hearing, can at the same time retain sufficient capacity to maintain or resume - at such an advanced age, after nearly twenty years spent under a particularly restrictive regime - meaningful contacts with a criminal organisation'.

The ruling by the ECHR covers the period until 24 May 2023, because on that date Morabito was taken to hospital for emergency surgery for a hernia and the 41bis was interrupted.

But the lawyer Giovanna Beatrice Araniti, who represented Morabito before the ECHR, says that the 41bis has been reactivated and hopes that the ruling will weigh against the appeal he filed in the Cassazione to have it suspended. In the ruling, the judges of the ECHR ruled that Italy has not violated his human rights by continuing to keep him in prison, despite him claiming that his health conditions areincompatible with detention. The former boss, detained in Opera prison, has been under special regime since 2004, to serve a 30-year sentence for drug offences and mafia association.

"We are now waiting for two rulings, both of which should arrive in May,' says lawyer Araniti of the Reggio Calabria Bar, 'one from the Court of Re-examination in Milan, which must rule on home detention in a nursing home, and one from the Court of Cassation on the revocation of the 41-bis regime. Even if after the Cedu's pronouncement, the Ministry could intervene directly on the special regime. I would add that my client,' the lawyer concludes, 'has been subjected to several court-appointed expert opinions, all of which have found a serious cognitive deterioration'.