I would like to tell you the story of a real “italian job”, which is indeed the story of my partner Giuseppe, born in the 1970 in Sud Tirol (Italy).
Everything started when he was a teenager…
He was living in Italy in Puglia, and at the age of 16 was as many others caught smoking a joint, with 2 grams of hashish in his pocket. Unfortunately, he was found by three of the worst elements from the financial police, who broke his head with the gun’s bottom, and then beaten him for at least one hour. Subsequently, he reported them, and of course as we have seen already for other similar or worst cases in Italy, not only the report was completely ignored but he was since then pointed out as an “uncomfortable subject”, with consequent persecution by the police who since then tried to make him pay for that mere attempt of pointing out such a power abuse.
As he moved to the north of Italy to get away from the persecution of the Italian Police in the south, the situation did not look that different indeed; he was once stopped by Carabinieri in Silandro, who searched his car trying to find some drugs.
They did not find any, and weirdly were not happy at all about this fact.
They started to beat him, and caused a severe injury on his left leg.
Also this time Giuseppe reported the fact the same night, first to the hospital and then at the police station, but in typical Italian style, the report was once more ignored.
Being him an anarchist since always, and not the kind of person who keeps the mouth shut, police tried in any way to trap him with fake witnesses about small drug smuggling and so on.
In the beginning of 2002, he decided to move to the Netherlands where, tired of the pressure climate in which Italy held him, he lived honestly and completely integrated, gaining as well an undetermined residence permit. Being of German and Italian native languages was easy for him to learn Dutch. He started a new life and also a brilliant career, from waiters to Credit and Collection specialist and Account Manager in many of the most important companies worldwide.
He met me and we had projects and dreams about having babies, buy a house, living a normal life… until the “Italian job” came to his completion.
In March 2009, the Italian police sent an extradition mandate complete of an aggregation of 5 convictions, many of which stinky, having incorrectness and unclear points.
Dutch police was indeed confused about this mandate, as they seen immediately that he was not at all the terrible and dangerous criminal which Italy was trying to depict. Nonetheless, in that period and currently he find himself in a state of big depression and also bad health condition, he was since months getting strong medicines for his lumbago and also some psycho pharmacs and sleeping pills, he was then not really in the conditions to front such a situation, and especially not in the conditions to front a jail permanence.
Dutch court decided to wait for the extradition approval because they wanted to have more information from the Italians.
Why many accuses were judge in Italy twice, having them been judge before in Germany which was the country in which they happened, and where he already fronted the related trials? How long should he get for each one of the convictions? Because it’s easy to send out a “cumulo” of convictions and claiming 8 years of prison without considering each an every case by itself.
The court sent out ten questions which had to be answered to the Italians, postponing the decision about the extradition approval to further inquiry; and then after an irrationally long waiting time of more than one month, Italians answered to only two of the ten questions, and in the two they answered the fake (for example they claimed that all the cases happened in Italy, which is not true and is specified in the mandates and as well in the trials documentation which Giuseppe received from his at the time lawyer).
At the time we were still hoping in justice, because there were really too many incoherent points. We name the fact that he was considered guilty, and therefore asked for the extradition, for a case in which the judges themselves had him acquitted.
It was also told to the Dutch judges that he was made aware of all trials for which the extradition was asked, while this was not only untrue but it wouldn’t even have been possible, for that an Italian attorney (Mr A. about whom we’ll spend a bit more time later on) apparently appointed himself as his appointed lawyer, without in fact any approval from him or his family.
This person had no contact with him, and in fact never made him aware of the trials.
But then, we had a real moral slap.
The second time he went back to court, all the judges were changed and these second ones appeared to be not well informed about the previous encounter, therefore about the case. They decided actually to ignore the requested answers, and took only 15 days to have a decision which ended up to be positive for the extradition.
Where is this so called Europe when we need it? They want us to feel “European”, and then when these cases happen, everyone decide to close in their home country shells.
The Italian petty attempt to infamy had success.
Is not only the shameful long time which the developing of juridical process takes in Italy, as all the convictions concern different cases since 1992 to 2001, but also the unbelievable incorrectness of which the cases are full.
One of the worst incorrectness is for example the case of the above mentioned A. lawyer whom is showing as his appointed lawyer in many of the trials (trials which of course took place without him, being him in the Netherlands and not made aware of anything, therefore unable to defend himself).
Appointed lawyer means that the lawyer has been chosen and paid by you as you trust this person to be chosen in your defense.
But Mr. A. not only was not chosen from Giuseppe nor his family in any of these trials (many of which he wasn’t even made aware of), he was refusedby Giuseppe in the one and only occasion in which they met, when he was still in Italy: Mr. A. was his court-appointed lawyer in a trial in which someone accused Giuseppe to have sold 1 gram of hash.
Giuseppe was trying in anyway to show it was a fake witness to trap him, but Mr. A. looked like rowing against him, trying to get him convicted. Giuseppe then had to arrive at the point to refuse to be represented by that lawyer in front of the court and took his defense by himself, and then he succeeded in induce the guy to speak the truth until he confessed he was inventing everything and his witness was indeed fake.
How come then that he would have choose and pay the lawyer whose was working against him?
You should be a bloody dumb masochist to do such a thing!
He processed a report against him which he intends as well to forward to the European Court for the Human Rights in Strasbourg, as he sent them already a report against the shameful and animals conditions in which the state prison Opera in Milan (and all the others, think about the fact that Opera is the last and newest prison in Italy) finds itself.
This is the situation in which he finds himself now: in a place where he can just be visited by family members, and he cannot phone for the first three months or something, psychologically tortured then to be cut out of the world. To go to visit him I had to gather a lot of documents about my residence and go back and forward to the consulate to have authentications and so on, and a friend would not be able to visit him anyway. Where it is impossible to have toilet paper, nor lamps when they need it because they’re not provided from the prison, but the prisoners have to buy them from themselves; in a place where is not possible to access the public library…and we are speaking about basics human rights; where he did not receive his medicines for more then a week after his arrival, while he received correctly during the short time he was held in Dutch prison before the transfer; where if you need a doctor they make you wait even 3-4 days (if you’re lucky); the guards are making a mess on porpoise with the prisoners requests and mail, just to destroy them psychologically. In a place that is supposed to guest 800 prisoners and there are 1400 instead, and is known to be the best prison in Italy.
Are we speaking about a service that would be supposed to be social, or are we speaking about a mass psychological takeover by the Italian fascist police-state?
I appeal to you all readers, because is not possible to shut up when a person whose in more then 8 years is sure changed, is being convicted and brought away from is normal life and family into a nightmare in which the most hypocrite country, which got tens and tens of convicted criminals in his government feels free to throw mud above a person’s honor and integrity, feels free to punish uncomfortable way of thinking and believes, and to do that uses the dirtiest methods, playing with their own law and constitution.
Where is the real justice gone?
Is it possible to be convicted for old and already passed cases in which not only there is a dirty turn around of lawyers, but also most of the cases are based on fake witnesses and infamies and not on real proved facts?
Where is the dignity of a human being gone?
Is it possible that a person in need of medical care once in prison has to suffer lack of toilet paper, and lamps, and medicines? Cannot access a library, cannot have contacts with the people he cares about?
Where is this so called Europe, when a person who’s living for more than seven years in a European country paying taxes and living a quiet and respectful life get kicked out of it as he would have been a damn dangerous criminal?
To these questions I still didn’t find any answer.
