7.31pm Legal Falcinelli: US police evaluate what happened carefully
«I think that at this point for Matteo’s affair it is necessary that it be acquired by the American administrative structure, therefore by the structure of the police bodies at a higher level, that there was behavior that was totally outside the rules, totally unjustified and disproportionate compared to what was the need for intervention. Here I think that the main purpose” of Italy’s requests for clarification “is precisely this: to make it clear that everything must be reported in the right terms”. This was said by the lawyer Francesco Maresca, lawyer of the student Matteo Falcinelli, arrested in an extremely violent manner in Miami by police officers, speaking on TG4.
19:27 The data: US police killed 1,247 people in 2023
According to the Mapping Police group, a non-governmental organization that studies the phenomenon of police violence in the US, last year the police killed at least 1,247 people and in the last nine years over 9,000, with a horrifying average of three people a day. Nine out of ten died due to gunshots but among the most common causes there are also the taser and what in technical jargon is called ‘physical restraint’: a policeman’s knee on the neck, for example, as the one who killed George Floyd on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis; or hogtiedness, which fortunately did not kill the Italian student.
18:07 The mother: they didn’t even allow him to call the consulate
«In prison they didn’t allow him to make an international phone call, nor did they contact the consulate or the embassy. They didn’t give him permission to make any international calls, he didn’t know any of his friends’ American numbers by heart and so they said: we’re sorry. And this was already after the torture, with a face full of blood.” Matteo Falcinelli’s mother declared this to the Messaggero.
4.54pm Miami police launch internal investigation
The Miami police have launched an internal investigation into the affair of Matteo Falcinelli, the young Italian arrested by officers in the US city last February, whose videos of the arrest have been released in recent hours. This is what we learn from informed sources.
4.00pm The mother: “Matteo arrested because he only wanted his phones back”
«Matteo wanted to go and get his two phones left in the bar and asked for them, but the officers, instead of assisting him, asked him to leave. Then he began to turn to the officers asking them why they weren’t doing their job to serve the citizens, but at that moment he touched the badge of one of the officers with his finger and the attack and arrest began from there.” This is what Vlasta Studenivova, mother of Matteo Falcinelli, the young man arrested in a violent manner in Miami last February, tells In Mezz’ora.
1.37pm The lawyer: we are requesting the Rome Prosecutor’s Office
The family of Matteo Falcinelli, the young man arrested in a violent manner, as witnessed by a video, in Miami last February, is evaluating how to proceed with reference to possible complaints about the incident, which he has not yet submitted. The lawyer assisting her, Francesco Maresca, reported this to ANSA. “We are urging the Rome Prosecutor’s Office – explained the lawyer – who can intervene in the facts that concern Italian citizens abroad”. The Prosecutor’s Office could open a file to request information from its American colleagues on the incident and to urge them to proceed directly against the police.
1.32pm Democratic jurists: “Falcinelli was tortured”
«There are international rules on human rights that cannot be violated neither in Italy, nor in Europe nor in the United States: the universal principle of the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatments applies and there are no doubts that the hogtieing which has been subjected the Italian student Matteo Falcinelli in the USA to brutal torture, one of the cruelest and oldest torture practices”. This was underlined by the lawyer Aurora D’Agostino, the vice president of the ‘Democratic Jurists’ association who is an international observer, on behalf of the European ‘Eldh’ network of jurists attentive to human rights, at the trial underway in Budapest against Ilaria Salis, the Italian teacher detained in Hungary in dramatic conditions.
1.30pm Falcinelli’s lawyer: “After an alternative measure, the matter is closed”
Matteo Falcinelli, the young man from Spoleto arrested in the USA in a violent manner, is currently undergoing an alternative treatment to prison, the parallel of probation in Italy. The Italian lawyer assisting the family, Francesco Maresca, confirmed this to ANSA, adding that “at the end of this period, from a judicial point of view this matter is over for him”. The 25-year-old was arrested and put on trial on charges of resisting a public official, resisting arrest and trespassing. The young man has been in the USA for three years for study reasons.
12.48 The family
Francesco Maresca, Matteo Falcinelli’s lawyer, says: «Matteo emerged from this story a little suffering, he emerged decidedly mistreated. At the moment he is still in Miami with his mother, and as a lawyer I have been in charge during these hours. I too am working on it and thinking about it now: I have had the task of testing the waters to understand if the Rome Prosecutor’s Office can do something about what happened and what is reported in the video images”. He confirms that the family was afraid of retaliation, but “now that Matteo’s trial is over and an alternative treatment to the sentence has been imposed on him – which would be probation in Italy – they have decided to let him out.”
12.31 Falcinelli: “Torture, but I survived”
«By surviving the torture I suffered, I won the most important match. Maybe my experience as a footballer helped me psychologically, otherwise I don’t know if I would have made it.” These are the words, entrusted to his mother Vlasta Studenivova and reported to ANSA, of Mattia Falcinelli, the young man arrested in a violent manner, as evidenced by a video, in Miami last February. At the moment Falcinelli is not in custody.
11.50 Tajani: “Maximum attention”
Since the beginning of the story, the Italian consulate general in Miami has been following the case of compatriot Matteo Falcinelli arrested by the police in Miami Beach on the night between 24 and 25 February and released after 2 days. The consul general in Miami, states a note from the Farnesina, underlined with the local authorities the unacceptability of the treatments that the young man underwent. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has already called for maximum attention to the case of the US ambassador to Italy Jack Markell, recalling that the Italian Government dutifully follows every case of detention of Italian citizens abroad.
11.50 Amnesty: “Illegal and unjustified treatment”
“Immobilizing for a long time, using a technique that causes intense pain, a person who evidently cannot pose any threat at that moment, is an illegal treatment, which has no safety justification.” Riccardo Noury, spokesperson for Amnesty International Italy, wrote this in a tweet regarding the arrest of the Italian student Matteo Falcinelli, hogtied in a cell in Miami for 13 minutes.