Stories

The incident

Marcello Lonzi died on 11th July 2003 in Sughere prison, Livorno, aged 29. He had entered the prison on 3rd January to serve a 9-month sentence for attempted theft. The emergency medical service gave the time of death as 8:45 pm. The news leaked out the same evening and was already in the press the next morning, reported first as a suicide and then as a heart attack.

Maria Ciuffi, Marcello's mother, was not told about it until the day after, by an aunt of Marcello's. When she went to the prison she had to wait a long time before being allowed into the mortuary. There, she saw her son with his shirt stained with blood, which was unusual for a death caused by a heart attack. Photos taken immediately after the death show the young man on his back in the cell with his head by the door frame and a ring-shaped bloodstain – very pale as if it had been washed – next to him on the floor. His face is swollen and his mouth is half-closed, with some teeth missing. There are three cuts on the left side of his face: one on the lip, one on the eyebrow and one high up on his forehead near the hairline.

The trial

In September 2003 Public Prosecutor Roberto Pennisi filed a case of murder against unknown persons. A few months later the photos of Lonzi's body were requested and duly submitted to the Prosecutor. The eyewitnesses were three: a prison officer, detainee M.G. and detainee G.G.

The prison officer said that he was accompanying M.G. back to his cell when Lonzi suggested to M.G. that they should have a coffee. M.G. agreed and they drank it there in the presence of the officer. The officer said that Lonzi looked in good health and that G.G. was in bed, apparently asleep. Then, a few minutes later, he heard somebody call out and when he got to the cell he saw Lonzi lying on the floor in a small pool of blood with his head next to the iron grating, and with G.G. calling him but getting no answer. The officer said he raised the alarm and the prison doctor came straight away and attempted to resuscitate Marcello, but to no avail. The two detainees confirmed this version of events, although Marcello's uncle, Ennio Lonzi, who was transferred to Livorno prison after his nephew's death and put in the same cell as M.G., was to say later that M.G. had “ties with the prison officers” and “spied for them”.

A lawyer assisting some of the detainees in Marcello's section advised Maria Ciuffi to keep seeking the truth, not only because there were truncheon marks on her son's back, but also because some of his detainees had told him that Marcello had been beaten by officers in the solitary confinement cells. None of these detainees, however, confirmed this before the magistrate or testified to it in court.

Dr. Alessandro Bassi Luciani provided the medico-legal opinion for the Public Prosecutor's Office, and a number of flaws and omissions in the report – such as the failure to mention the wounds on the back, clearly visible in the photos, and the broken front teeth – have been pointed out by the A Buon Diritto association. In his conclusion, Dr. Bassi Luciani argues that Lonzi's injuries were not serious enough to cause death and therefore that the causes were attributable to a cardiac arrest. The causes of death are not actually clearly stated and Dr. Bassi Luciani merely provides a hypothesis – the most “natural” one.

In the Autumn of 2003 several Members of Parliament raised points of order about the case and discussed the possibility of setting up a ministerial commission of inquiry, which was not done. In July 2004 Public Prosecutor Pennisi terminated the investigation as, in his opinion, nothing of significance had emerged from it, and requested that the case be dismissed. This was objected to, however, by Vittorio Trupiano, the lawyer acting for Maria Ciuffi, who maintained that the investigation had been carried out in a superficial manner. A family-appointed forensic pathologist, Marco Salvi, was engaged to carry out further examinations on Lonzi's body which, despite the mother's requests, was not exhumed. The investigation, therefore, had to be based only on the photographs and the previous flaw-ridden autopsy. Without waiting for Dr. Salvi's report, which was to be published in 2005, the Judge for the Preliminary Investigations, Rinaldo Merani, accepted the hypothesis of Public Prosecutor Pennisi and police doctor Bassi Luciani that Lonzi had died of a heart attack due to natural causes, and the case was dismissed for the first time.

On 12th January 2005 Maria Ciuffi filed a lawsuit against Public Prosecutor Pennisi, Dr. Bassi Luciani and a prison officer and, in the subsequent hearing, Dr. Salvi's counter-report was submitted. Preliminary Hearing Judge Fenizia dismissed Ciuffi's lawsuit but reopened the case in July 2006, thanks to the new forensic evidence. The case was now headed by Public Prosecutor Antonio Giaconi, who authorised the exhumation of the body, appointing the pathologist Dr. Francesco De Ferrari as police doctor, with Dr. Marco Salvi acting for the family.

De Ferrari referred to the flaws in the previous report and brought to light a number of important details: there were several broken ribs, not just one, all on the left side, and the sternum itself was fractured. Toxicological examinations were performed which ruled out the possibility of Lonzi having taken drugs. In the end, though, De Ferrari confirmed Bassi Luciani's hypothesis, adding, in fact, that Lonzi's previous drug addiction problems must inevitably have influenced and indeed accelerated the onset of the cardiac problem, that death was caused by strong emotional stress and that aggression by third parties was unlikely because there were no visible external signs of it. Dr. Salvi, however, argued that external signs are not always visible when injuries have been sustained (referring to the Genoa G8 episodes at Diaz and Bolzaneto) and that Dr. De Ferrari's conclusions therefore were not irrefutable scientific facts. Nevertheless, for De Ferrari the cause of death was acute cardiac circulatory failure.

In may 2008, G.G, Lonzi's cellmate, was questioned, but no significant results ensued. Towards the end of 2008 Public Prosecutor Giaconi appointed Laura Vannuccini and Floriana Monciotti to provide a third and final medico-legal opinion. The same points emerged as made by the two public prosecutors, but with two novelties: reference was made to Marcello's claim that he been beaten when he was arrested, and an attempt was made to explain scientifically the impact of the purported blow. The two experts wrote that the injuries had been caused by a blunt or partially sharp instrument and hypothesised that the object used for striking could have been the plastic bucket found broken in the cell, even though this had sharp, jagged edges. Salvi argues that this third opinion lacked scientific rigour and noted that, in a photograph of the body taken when it was exhumed, a blue fragment could be seen in the wound on Lonzi's eyebrow. The cell doors in Sughere prison were blue; the bucket was red. Salvi's counter-report came too late. On 6th March 2010 Public Prosecutor Giaconi filed the dismissal request and, in a press conference called unexpectedly on 19th May, Livorno's Chief Public Prosecutor publicly announced announced that the case was dismissed.

On 29th 2011 the Court of Cassation issued a negative opinion on the reopening of the case. Maria Ciuffi decided to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights which, on 18th April rejected the appeal as “inadmissible”.