Cesare Battisti, the judge: “Discount of sentence for good behavior.” The former terrorist had started a hunger strike

A penalty discount, the one established by law for all prisoners. Cesare Battisti, a former proletarian terrorist armed by communism sentenced to life imprisonment and extradited from Brazil after a long confrontation, until now “during his imprisonment he has shown proof ofi participation in reeducation work, in addition, registering habitual behaviors. “And that is why the Cagliari Surveillance Magistrate, Maria Cristina Lampis, granted the early release of the former CAP terrorist, that is, the” 45 days reduction of the sentence “provided for by each semester discounted for good conduct. It was granted for the two discounted semesters from January 2019 to January 2020. Therefore, it is not a release from prison.

For the lawyer Davide steccanella Meanwhile, Battisti continues to apply illegitimate isolation in prison. “The absolute absence of responses to the request presented by the defense to all the competent bodies even on May 18, in which the situation of illegitimate isolation was denounced, and repeated in vain on June 12, is disconcerting,” explains the defender -. Lack of answers that prevents even the minimum right to challenge any administrative measure ”. The granting of early release for the correct conduct of Battisti “further highlights the incomprehensible contradiction of the ministry,” says the lawyer, “which continues to classify as a dangerous terrorist the person who committed the last act for which a sentence was handed down in 1979 and in a context historical and social very different from our country ”.

Battisti, sentenced to life imprisonment for 4 murders and arrested in 2019 after 37 years of inaction, has been in daytime isolation in Oristano Prison. The prisoner, who admitted the four murders for which he was convicted, had gone on a hunger strike. “Having exhausted all other means to assert my rights, I am forced to resort to a total hunger strike and refusal of therapy,” he writes in a letter sent to his lawyer. The control of the Dap (Department of Penitentiary Administration) – writes Battisti in the letter – meticulously implemented by the prison authorities of Oristano, defiantly resisted all my attempts to restore legality and the due granting of rights provided by law, but always stubbornly denied. My written or oral complaints addressed to this Directorate, to the Control Magistrate, to public opinion were of no use. Cesare Battisti is not even allowed to be surprised if some laws are suspended in his case: this is what different authorities have made me understand, in unequivocal terms ”. “Asking for treatment equal to that of any other inmate – the letter continues – is a continuous and exhausting contest that involves the most ordinary acts of my daily life: air time; forced and unjustified isolation; insufficient medical performance; the arbitrary retention of literary texts; questions systematically ignored; Objects of various utility and work tools denied, even if you provide themprison system, etc. Hence the announcement of the hunger strike and the refusal to treat the illnesses that he suffers. Everything, writes Battisti, “so that my transfer to a detention center can be arranged, where relations with family members and with external bodies provided for by the legal system, as well as professional relationships aimed at sustenance and reintegration. I also ask – he concludes – that my classification in the High Security regime (AS2) of terrorists be reviewed, since the conditions of employment no longer exist. risk that would justify it ”.

He was granted early release for the two discounted semesters from January 2019 to January 2020, the last of which was contested last July by Battisti and his lawyer Davide Steccanella with a complaint for abuse of office before the Rome Prosecutor’s Office . , because it was considered illegitimate. Precisely for this reason, in the morning came the announcement of the former terrorist who, by letter made public by his lawyer, had made it known that “having exhausted all other means to enforce my rights, I am forced to resort to total hunger strike and to refusal of therapy“.