Stories

Manuel Eliantonio, aged 22, died in Marassi prison in Genoa on 25th July 2008, officially of a cardiac arrest caused by inhaling gas from a cylinder.

Seven months earlier, on the evening of 22nd December 2007, Manuel, who lived in the Liguria region, went with four friends to a discotheque near the town of Cuneo. The morning after, on their way home by car – driven by Manuel – they went into a service area on the Turin-Savona motorway for a break. There, they were stopped by the police for a drugs test. According to the police, all five of them tested positive, although none of this has been documented.

Manuel, who was already awaiting sentencing for theft and receiving stolen property, asked the police if he could go behind a bush to relieve himself. In a fit of panic he tried to escape, but was chased and caught by a police officer and taken to the traffic police headquarters along with his friends. The four friends were released shortly afterwards, but Manuel was transferred to Savona prison. He was charged with resisting arrest and causing multiple injuries and, in addition, the car he was driving had apparently been stolen. Manuel spent one month in prison. The detention was subsequently changed to compulsory residence and then, on 16th March, to house arrest. Some days later, however, he was taken back to Savona prison for failing to observe his house arrest conditions and then, shortly afterwards, transferred first of all to Chiavari prison and then to Turin prison, where he was given a suspended sentence for his previous offences. Back at Chiavari again, he was sentenced to five months and ten days for resisting arrest and then transferred yet again, this time to Marassi District Prison in Genoa.

These months in prison were very hard for Manuel, above all because the constant transfers prevented his mother, Maria – who had a little daughter and was in a difficult economic situation – from visiting him. As well as this, in his letters to the family he described the alarming conditions he was subject to: forced use of psychoactive drugs, frequent solitary confinement and repeated violence – evidence of which can be seen in his medical records. On 7th July, he was reported as having nasal contusion and a wound on his lower forehead. These were both attributed to 'self-harm', despite not being in any way typical of self-inflicted injuries. His records also refer to the prescription of huge doses of psychoactive drugs , but with no clear reasons given for prescribing them.

On the morning of 25th July, a week before her son was due to be released from prison, Maria Eliantonio was informed of his death. The immediate explanation was suicide, committed by inhaling gas from the cylinder used for cooking in the cell. According to the official reconstruction, Manuel's body was found in the cell bathroom by another detainee at just before 7 in the morning. The contradictions, though, are many. The autopsy puts the probable time of death at between 10:50 pm and 12:50 am, but this doesn't coincide with the statements made by Manuel's cellmates, who said that he was still in bed at 2 in the morning. Then, his cellmates said there was a strong smell of gas at the time the body was found, even though, theoretically, Manuel died hours earlier. Also, there is some confusion about the gas cylinder: according to the Public Prosecutor the cylinder was on the floor when the body was found , but a detainee said that he had found it still in Manuel's hand when he was dead and that he had taken it and thrown it into the rubbish bin. And then, one of the detainees said he saw some red marks in the bathroom, but these have never been looked into.

Another very serious fact emerges regarding the state of Manuel's body when Maria Eliantonio saw it in the morgue. She said that his face seemed to have been pummelled, that his neck was broken, that his skin came away as if it had been boiled and that there were bloodstains that had been cleaned up. Then, on the day of the funeral, when Manuel's relatives approached the body, a mortuary attendant shouted to them to keep away, saying “ don't touch it, he's got AIDS”, even though there was no evidence of this.

The strangest thing of all, however is that Manuel had a terrible fear of gas because of a childhood trauma and, according to his mother, normally he wouldn't even light the burners on the cooker at home.
A file was opened on the death of Manuel Eliantonio, but the case was dismissed. A few months after her son died, Maria Eliantonio started a blog (http://blog.libero.it/manuelEliantonio).