ROMA: Fifty-two prison officials have been suspended for alleged their involvement in attacks on prisoners who have protested the lack of face masks and virus tests during the peak of Italian pandemic last year, the Ministry of Justice said on Wednesday.
Video surveillance from officers who held the club beat, kicked and punched prisoners in the waiting room and when they rose down the stairs published online Tuesday and Wednesday by the Domani II newspaper.
Some prisoners in Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison in Naples were beaten repeatedly when they were on the floor, bleeding, or when they walked with their hands behind their head bent.
Nothing looks refusing or trying to fight.
The Ministry of Justice Italy said 52 officers and supervisors had been suspended, awaiting criminal investigations into the events of April 6, 2020.
Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia ordered a full internal investigation of what had happened.
He called the Episode of betrayal of the Italian Constitution, “violations and anger towards dignity of prisoners,” and to officers who do their work well.
“Facing serious facts like that, words are not enough,” Cartabia said in a statement.
“Need to take action to understand and eliminate the cause so that things like this never happened again.” The Italian prosecutor has opened a criminal investigation on what is called some “slaughter” prisoners after they protested the lack of protection of Coronavirus after a positive case in prison during the peak of the Italian outbreak last year.
The officers were seen wearing facial masks and some even delivered their punches to wear latex gloves.
The prisoners do not have a mask.