It is not yet clear if anyone has any responsibility in the death of Antonio Alfieri, a prisoner of Naples, but it is certain that those who had the task of informing the family members, who were warned only four days after his death are. This was announced in a statement by the Guarantor of persons deprived of personal freedom of Campania, Samuele Ciambriello, who received Luca Mottola, the man’s lawyer, who died Friday 8 October in the Cardarelli hospital at his office. According to the lawyer’s account, he had made an ordinary reservation for the interview with the prisoner on Friday, but only on Monday, once he went to prison, was he notified of the client’s death. Even his family, as he learned shortly after, had just been informed of the news by the carabinieri. “Once again – underlines Ciambriello – to die is a drug addict, to whom the Serd of Poggioreale had found a community outside the Region, in Taranto, but the competent Magistrate had twice rejected the request for house arrest”. The causes of death have not yet been specified. The Guarantor declares that he has requested clarifications regarding the management of the prison, to be informed “about the psychophysical conditions before the day of death, if the inmate died of natural death, if he died on the way to the Cardarelli Hospital or once arrived there and the reasons for which he was rushed to the hospital ». The other important question, on which we try to clarify, is “why family members were warned of the tragic event only on 11 October 2021, 4 days after the tragic event”, adds Ciambriello.
«I keep repeating – concludes the Guarantor – without being attacked by the usual indifferent and forcaioli, that a drug addict in prison, a mentally ill person should not stay in prison, but should avoid it, taking advantage of alternative measures. But you know, politics, the majority of citizens and a good part of the judiciary consider prison a simple, security answer to complex needs ».
In the morning came the reply from the regional vice secretary Osapp of Campania Luigi Castaldo, who states that “It is easy to exploit without being aware of what is happening, creating further cracks in a system already in serious difficulty”. And on the complaint of the Guarantor he adds that «Once again the Penitentiary Police is questioned by those who limit themselves to observing what suits them without being aware of the facts. The Guarantor of Campania prisoners Samuele Ciambriello denounces delays in the notices for the death of a prisoner in the hospital, it is good to specify that the facts are quite different and that clarifications are welcome, but that mournful events were not used to exploit by generalizing the work of thousands of men and women of the Police Forces “. The Poggioreale prison, recalls the trade unionist, “today hosts and counts over 2200 inmates when its capacity is around 1600. In addition, various departments are undergoing restructuring and therefore crowding is further aggravated, which consequently makes the work of all the professionals who orbit in the much more difficult structure, starting from the director of the penitentiary Carlo Berdini, to the department commander of the Penitentiary Police Gaetano Diglio who, with the scarce means and men have to face a judicial organization not only in the province of Naples but also of the whole region and neighboring ones, think that detainees also come from outside the region due to Covid-19 restrictions “. “After all, – concludes Castaldo – the most battered are always the last, that is the prison policemen on the front line, who suffer free media attacks while carrying out a very complex job with a lot of humanity, where they deserve more support from politics in all respects”.