Torture for more violence on detainees even if only on one occasion

The offence of torture is committed for multiple violent conduct committed against prisoners, in conditions of subjugation, to whom acutephysical suffering and verifiable psychic damage are caused. The Cassazione, in a series of rulings (42649 and others), rejected the appeals - against the provisional suspension from duty for one year - brought by the coordinator of the Prison Police Corps of Foggia and a number of officers, who were investigated for the crime of torture against two detainees. The Supreme Court rejected the defence's argument, according to which, the charge of the crime, provided for by Article 613bis of the Criminal Code, was unfounded because, in the case examined, it lacked the element of repetition required, in the applicants' opinion, also by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The judges of legitimacy were of a different opinion, who, with a verdict in line with the ECHR, clarified that the charge can also be brought in the hypothesis of multiple conducts of violence and threats, even if carried out 'in a single space-time context'. In the case examined, the judge had reconstructed, a detainee had been induced by three or four officers to return to his cell, under the pretext of a search, and there in turn the suspects had beaten him, after breaking his glasses with a slap. At the basis of the aggression was the behaviour of one of the inmates, with psychological problems, who had shocked an inspector by cutting himself in front of her. He also beat his cellmate who had defended him. The objection on the impossibility of using video footage shot in common areas of the prison, because they are not places of private residence, did not pass either.

As for the coordinator, in addition to having participated in an assault, for detaining a detainee in the switchboard, he is charged with the same offence as the officers (sentence 42652) for not taking action, as was his duty, to prevent the violence. According to the judges, 'the appellant had been responsible for conduct of considerable gravity, availing himself of the complicity of the other prison officers, demonstrating a particular disregard for the duties of his office and a propensity to resort to deeds, even for the sole purpose of imposing his own supremacy'. Finally, according to the ermines, physical suffering is proven by the injuries and pain experienced by the detainees after days. As for the psychological ones, they are proved by the fear that emerges even during interrogations and by the state of prostration in which they find themselves.