An island isolated from everything, where every little thing seems precious and rare. This is how Asinara appeared during the prison period. Mysterious and full of stories, different but linked to each other. The doctor Antonello Flumene, for 15 years, from '83 to '98, committed to treating the sick on the island, recounted his relationship with the patients, from prisoners to prison guards, from soldiers to residents, serving at the prison Fornelli's maximum security system. «I met people who taught me how to behave in prison. A place where you were happy only if you had the ability to adapt to island life. Many colleagues, in fact, had immediately abandoned Asinara." This is what he said on the occasion of the event entitled "Emotions", organized at the headquarters of the Asinara National Park Authority, in the presence of Carlo Hendel, organizer of the initiative together with the commissioner, and the director of the Park, Gian Carlo Muntoni, and Vittorio Gazale. «The prisoners appeared not as bad people but as subjects endowed with great humanity».
His first day on the island, however, was traumatic with a silver lining that changed his approach to prisoners forever. Arriving at the Fornelli prison, a nurse welcomed him with a stack of around 80 medical records belonging to the inmates to be examined. He immediately got to work. It started at 7 in the morning. The head of the branch gave him some rules of conduct to be followed within the central branch of the prison. Locked up were lifers and dangerous prisoners.
"To reach the medical clinic I advise you to go through the corridors, where all the cells overlook, walking as far away as possible from the bars, because the inmate could grab you and kidnap you", the branch head told me. «I could hear my footsteps and those of the prison officers crossing the corridors and the sound of the keys opening the gates. In the last stretch I was struck by a moment of fear. The footsteps of the soldiers were no longer heard. Suddenly someone grabbed me from behind, twisted their arm around my neck and immobilized me." He began to turn pale. «Are you the doctor? What football team do you support?" he asked me. «I thought that if I had the wrong team I would have paid dearly». He replied: "I support Inter." The reward was a series of kisses on the back of the neck because he was also an Inter player. One of the most fearsome prisoners, with seven life sentences to serve. One meter and 98 centimeters tall, convicted of several murders, killer of children, but released from prison, among those who due to good behavior are authorized to carry out activities and live outside the cell. «The security guards told me that that had been my baptism, organized with their complicity».
