An inmate of the Sabbione prison, in Terni, died last night after starting - according to a first reconstruction - a fire inside his cell, in section G "reception", remaining intoxicated by smoke.
He is a thirty-five-year-old native of North Africa who had to answer for drug-related crimes. The aid brought by the health workers who tried to save the man's life was useless.
Other detainees were also slightly intoxicated in the incident. Investigations are underway by the penitentiary police of Terni, with the coordination of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
"We are bitter and angry," comments Fabrizio Bonino, national secretary for Umbria of the Autonomous Union of Penitentiary Police (Sappe). "This is a tragedy foretold and it is also the consequence of an underestimation of the continuous requests for intervention for the Sabbione that we have been doing for months and months. A man who loses his life in detention is always a defeat for the State: and this despite the fact that the prison staff have done everything to avoid it".
According to the trade unionist, the deceased man is a foreigner with psychiatric problems, who set fire to everything he had in his cell and in a very short time was overwhelmed by the flames and the thick black smoke that spread. "With difficulty - he continues - the policemen present and those who arrived as reinforcements, even free from duty, managed to intervene, also remaining intoxicated, but unfortunately there was nothing to do. There were no signs that the detainee could make the insane gesture. He had been assigned here by the Regional Provveditorato of Tuscany and the day before yesterday he had an audience in Liguria".
A tragedy, writes Sappe, "occurred in the context of a very critical prison situation that we have been denouncing for months and with respect to which no intervention has ever been adopted. The Sabbione is a powder keg, we have been denouncing it for some time and the fear that something irreparable would happen has occurred. The leaders of the penitentiary administration of Tuscany, on which Umbria depends - concludes the trade unionist - must resign for their inability to give solutions to the problems of Umbrian prisons and the penitentiary police who work in regional prisons. The DAP should immediately send an inspection visit to the prison."
The body of the detainee is now available to prosecutor Raffaele Pesiri for investigations.
On Monday in the prison of Terni there was another episode of violence. Another detainee of Maghreb origin had in fact punched a nurse engaged in administering drug therapy. The woman, who ended up on the ground, was transported to the emergency room.