«In prisons people continue to die with a noose around their neck. It is a massacre that seems to have no end."
Irene Testa, regional guarantor of prisoners, comments on the suicide of the 52-year-old in Bancali prison, the 27th since the beginning of the year : «This data is an alarm bell that indicates that the penitentiary system is in an emergency condition. Prison police officers have also taken their own lives, three since the beginning of the year ."
«Is it possible – he asks – that the entire prison system should fall on those who work in those places and pretend not to see what is happening? Until we think we can contain the malaise within institutions by hiding the problem. The President of the Republic urges the Government and Parliament to intervene ."
The 52-year-old hanged himself on the cell gate with his trouser string and was found dead yesterday morning at 6am by prison officers when they opened for the count. "We are dismayed and heartbroken: a prisoner who takes his own life in prison is a defeat for the State and for all of us who work on the front line", the words of Donato Capece, general secretary of the Autonomous Penitentiary Police Union . «He had returned the evening before from hospitalization - explains Sappe's national delegate for Sardinia, Antonio Cannas - It seems he was suffering from suicidal problems. The prisoner was Italian. In the cell with him there was another inmate who apparently didn't notice anything because he was asleep. When the cell lock was opened, the man was found hanging from the gate."
(Unioneonline/D)
