Another day of high tension in Uta prison .
This afternoon an inmate started a fire in his cell and four prison police officers were poisoned .
The man, of foreign origin, was in an isolation cell, in transit in the Cagliari penitentiary, and set fire to the mattress after covering it with oil . The officers immediately intervened to put out the fire but they breathed in the smoke and four of them ended up in hospital with a yellow code assigned for suspected poisoning: two at Santissima Trinità, one at Brotzu and one in Monserrato.
Rescue operations were very difficult due to poor visibility and unbreathable air, fire extinguishers were insufficient to put out the flames, while the combustion with the oil created a sort of explosion that hit the officers .
The general secretary of the UIL PA Penitentiary Police of Sardinia Michele Cireddu: «After a terrible 2024 for the Uta prison, the new year does not promise anything positive, only 3 days have passed and we are already recording the first serious critical event that could have had a tragic epilogue . The personnel who intervened risked their lives to save the prisoners in the section and the way in which the fire was caused dangerously slowed down the rescue efforts. The combustion between the oil-soaked mattress and the substances in the fire extinguisher created black smoke that reduced visibility to a minimum and made the air unbreathable. While a first group of Agents rushed to save the prisoners involved in the fire, another group put on gas masks and intervened with the fire hose because the fire extinguishers proved ineffective ».
The fact that he poured liters of oil on the mattress, according to the unionist, is a "clear signal of the will to create tragic effects". The union sent a note to Prime Minister Meloni, Minister Nordio and Undersecretary Del Mastro for "an emergency that can no longer be ignored". In Uta there are 760 inmates for 530 places . And despite this, "inmates continue to arrive from the peninsula who have set entire sections on fire in other institutes".
