Student arrested in Miami, Matteo Falcinelli: “I was tortured, but I survived”
“By surviving the torture I suffered, I won the most important match. Maybe my experience as a footballer helped me psychologically, otherwise I don’t know if I would have made it”. These are the words, entrusted to mother Vlasta Studenivova and referred toHandleOf Matteo Falcinelli, the young man arrested in a violent manner, as evidenced by a video, in Miami last February. At the moment Falcinelli is not in custody. Unlike Ilaria Salis, the Italian woman accused of murder and in detention in Hungary. The latter is a “detail” which apparently distinguishes the Falcinelli case, but which has in common the less than civil treatment by the public authorities of the USA and Hungary towards an Italian.
Italian arrest Miami, the mother: “Life destroyed, we will fight”
“The actions of the police reminded me of the torture that the Gestapo carried out on prisoners during the Second World War and I will go to the end to obtain justice”: this was stated by Vlasta Studenicova, the mother of the Umbrian student Matteo Falcinelli who in a video is hogtied by American policemen for 13 minutes during his arrest in February in Miami, in an interview with the National Daily. “What my son suffered must never happen again to any other person in the world, much less to a 25-year-old boy, a university student abroad”, added the woman, born in Slovakia but with Italian citizenship , divorced from a man from Spoleto.
“Matteo, a cheerful, enterprising and full of life boy, took away his smile and destroyed his dreams, leading him to even try to take his own life”, explained his mother, “he was tortured: you just have to look at the videos to realize it”. He was not in the United States when his son was arrested and subjected to unspeakable violence, but now he is in Miami assisting him on campus together with his other son Marco. At the end of March the judge dropped the charges against the Italian student for resisting public officials without violence after reporting a bar where he had created problems (but the managers withdrew the complaint for violation of private property) in exchange participation in an educational program. “He is ill, very ill”, he reported, “they have destroyed his life. He is followed by psychologists and psychiatrists. Initially he was admitted to a hospital due to the serious injuries he had suffered. He was later transferred to a psychiatric hospital because at risk of suicide, due to the brutal torture inflicted on him he tried to take his own life several times. Even now at night he dreams of the arrival of the police who torture him and he wakes up screaming monitor day and night.”
Falcinelli case, lawyer: “We are urging the Rome Prosecutor’s Office”
Matteo’s family Falcinelli, the young man arrested in a violent manner, as witnessed by a video, in Miami last February, is evaluating how to proceed with reference to possible complaints about the incident, which he has not yet submitted. The lawyer assisting her, Francesco Maresca, reported this to Ansa. “We are urging the Rome Prosecutor’s Office – explained the lawyer – who can intervene in the facts that concern Italian citizens abroad”. The Prosecutor’s Office could open a file to request information from its American colleagues on the incident and to urge them to proceed directly against the police.
Italian arrest Miami, Amnesty: “Unjustifiable treatment”
For the spokesperson of Amnesty International Italy, Riccardo Noury, the treatment suffered by the Italian student Matteo Falcinelli at the time of his arrest in Miami, in February, he was “illegal”. “Immobilizing for a long time, using a technique that causes intense pain, a person who evidently cannot pose any threat at that moment, is an illegal treatment, which has no safety justification,” Noury wrote on X.
Italian arrest Miami: “Tajani urges US embassy attention”
On the case of the young Italian arrested in Miami on the night between 24 and 25 February and “subjected to particularly violent prison treatment”, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani urges the attention of the US authorities. As a note from the Farnesina informs, “since the beginning of the affair, the Italian consulate general in Miami has been following the case. At the time of the arrest, Mr. Falcinelli was subjected to particularly violent custodial treatment, as witnessed by the body-cams of the policemen who carried out the arrest”. “For this reason, in addition to following the case and providing assistance to the family for the legal aspects, the consul general Miami underlined with the local authorities the unacceptable nature of the treatments the young man underwent. In Rome, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani has already called for maximum attention to the case of the United States ambassador to Italy Jack Markell, recalling that the Italian Government dutifully follows every case of detention of Italian citizens abroad”. reads in the note.
“Falcinelli – continues the Farnesina note – he had been arrested as he was leaving a nightclub. The Miami police had charged him with several crimes, including non-violent resistance to a public official. He was released two days after the arrest. The Consulate General in Miami took immediate action: in addition to intervening with the local authorities, it provided the necessary assistance to the compatriot and family members, also providing contacts for the legal office, then chosen by the family”. “Until the conclusion of the the Consulate General, in agreement with the Farnesina, will continue to assist the compatriot, maintaining close contact with the family”, concludes the note.
#Salis #case #explodes #Italian #arrested #USA #hogtied #tortured