(ANSA) - SIENA, MARCH 09 - The Siena court has sentenced five penitentiary officers of the San Gimignano prison to sentences of between 5 years and 10 months and up to 6 years and 6 months for torture, forgery and aggravated threats.
For the prosecution they would be responsible for the beating of a Tunisian detainee in October 2018 in a cell transfer.
The panel made its decision after seven hours of deliberation.
The prosecutor had asked for between 6 and 8 years of sentence.
The five defendants were in the courtroom at the reading of the sentence, some burst into tears, one yelled "Shame on you".
"We will appeal," announced the lawyer Manfredi Biotti, defender of four of the five defendants, prison police officers sentenced tonight by the Siena court for torture at the San Gimignano prison, after President Simone Spina read the document.
"We don't understand what the judges' reasoning was but we take note of it; we will see the reasons and we will appeal, it is certainly a very bad sign", added Biotti.
Instead the lawyer Michele Passione, lawyer of the Guarantor of the detainees, stated, again after reading the sentence: "We have argued that the crime of torture is more serious when it is committed by a public official because it outlines a relationship of power that is extorted by betraying the trust that everyone must have in the police force who are in the highest composition sane".
In the past, 10 other agents were convicted with the abbreviated procedure for the same facts.
(HANDLE).
