US consulate, investigation widens: workers' manager also detained

Another suspect, another escape attempt. The investigation into forced labour at the construction sites of the American consulate in Milan is expanding even further. There is another name among those responsible, besides the company Caddell Construction and its legal representative. Aji Appukuttan, born in India, 52 years old, was making arrangements to take a bus or other means of transport two days ago to escape. The labour protection unit of the Milan Carabinieri stopped him. He was in charge of personnel management. At the construction site, he also allegedly put pressure on the workers 'intimidating them not to speak and not to report outside what was happening at the construction site'.

The arrest of the man, ordered by the public prosecutor Paolo Storari, following last Sunday's arrest of Ulkas Demir (the manager blocked at Orio al Serio while he was catching a flight to Istanbul), was necessary because, as the order states, from the testimonies collected by the Carabinieri among the workers, 'he wanted to escape from Italia, only he understood that the plane was dangerous. So he was organising himself knowing that the Indian workers told you about him.

Here are some reported testimonies. "From what I have seen with my own eyes on many occasions, he treats the Indian workers like slaves, like you see in films about slaves. When I would see those scenes where he treated the workers badly by shouting and sending them away I would ask some English-speaking workers what he had said, they would reply that he had threatened them by saying he would sack them and send them to India'.

The 41-year-old Egyptian was heard by investigators and related the picture of harassment suffered by the 'workers' and labourers of the $200 million maxi construction site in Piazzale Accursio in Milan. He said he did not know all the 'names' of the workers involved (with peaks of 500 people on the site) but 'everyone I spoke to told me they were afraid of him'.

Aji is said to have kept 'contacts with the Indian company that brings them to Italy and from what they told me they pay money to come', about 500 thousand rupees (5-6 thousand euro) to obtain a residence permit for work reasons. According to the reconstruction, part of that money would be transferred and turned over to the 'operational corporal'. The man in Italia 'frightened them' and 'when it happened that some of them protested or for any problem between Caddell and the workers' he would take care of solving the problems. The witness provided the investigators with further information on the exploitative system behind the 40,000 square metre urban regeneration project in Piazzale Accursio, which could lead to judicial developments in the coming weeks.