Death at the CPT of Turin: interview to lawyer Gianluca Vitale visiting the structure

Lengthen the stay in a CPT to 18 months?
Remind that a man was found death in10 days in the CPT of Tourin!

A tragic inauguration for the new centre of temporary detention in Turin; this new centre, costed 12 milion of euros, was defined by the prefecture “more safe and civil” and started working, in secret, monday morning.
On this first period of organization, the persons hosted in the centre were 60, but another 70 rooms are under contruction.
At 8 o’clock of saturday morning, in the part of the centre called “red zone”, Hassan Nejl was found death in the room number 2. He was deteined since 10 days for a decree of expulsion firmed by the governor of Padua. Some peoples of the CPT said: “they treated him like a dog!!”

We inteviewed the lawyer Gianluca Vitale who visited the centre on monday morning of the 26 of may:

We spoke first with police and duty doctors:
the versions of the story were similar but not the same: the guy was visited in the afternoon before his dead two times by the doctor because of a bad sore troat and high fever. Then he asked many times for another visit but no one helped him until the morning of the next day, when he was found death.
The duty doctors said: “nothing happened after the visit and no one called us during the night. We was advised when the guy was already dead”.

It has been difficult to ask something to the other peoples detained in the centre because they were all shocked and really scared, but when we succeed to ask something about this tragedy, the versions were all concordants: during the night they asked help for calling the doctors many times but the only response that a militar gave them was “the doctors in this moment are busy, tomorrow morning will be able”.

Another serious thing is due to the fact that the autopsy revealed that the guy dead for a hypoxia (lack of oxygen), an in this case, an immediate intervention of the doctors could saved his life. Therefore there was the possibility to save the poor immigrate, and the prosecution authority will investigate about that.

Q: What valutations can you do after the visit of the CPT that in theory should be a futuristic centre??

A: Stricly from the structural point of view, this centre is similar to the other but meanwhile the rooms of the old CPT are containers, those rooms are buildt in brickwork, but this not change the fact that there is a lack of regulation inside the CPT so only the rights of this people detained are not observed, but they doesn’t exist at all!

Q: And what about the situation of the other people detained in the centre? What is the situation now?

A: The situation is really desperate. They totally lost the faith in everyone and they want to know how could have been possible that their friend is dead. I sincerly hope that an answer will arrive soon.

Translated by: Marco Pantano