Scores of mafia bosses currently behind bars could be freed all across Italy due to coronavirus pandemic-related risks, The Guardian reports.
In an internal memo seen by the newspaper, Italy’s department of penitentiary police asked jail officials for the names of convicted mobsters who are over 70 and suffer from specific illnesses, adding that they are “at risk of complications in case of COVID-19 infection”.
The Guardian quoted Leo Beneduci, secretary general of Osapp, Italy’s largest prison police officers’ union, as saying that the situation is “very alarming”.
“In Italy there are approximately 12,000 members of criminal organisations in prison. Members of the penitentiary police have begun reporting detainees who embrace each other with the alleged goal of increasing the possibility of contracting the virus and getting released from prison”, he said.
Claudio Fava, president of Sicily’s anti-mafia commission, for his part, expressed concern over mafia bosses’ possible push to leverage the COVID-19 crisis in order to secure their release.
“As infections have begun to wane, [potentially] releasing bosses in isolation under [Article] 41-bis [of the Italian penal code], like Santapaola and Bagarella, is hypocritical and an offence toward the thousands of elderly victims of this virus”, Fava pointed out.
He was echoed by Lirio Abbate journalist and national editor of the Italian news magazine L’Espresso, who warned of the risk of “the mafia virus” emerging “on the streets alongside COVID-19”.
“It would be a double pandemic that we mustn’t allow to happen”, Abbate added.
Italian Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede, however, stressed that he was looking into the reports and that the government has yet to decide on the matter.
The remarks came after L’Espresso on Wednesday reported that a Milan judge had ordered the release of 78-year-old Francesco Bonura, one of Cosa Nostra’s most influential bosses, who was serving a 23-year sentence and is currently under house arrest. This was preceded by the judges also setting free Rocco Santo Filippone, 72 and 65-year-old Vincenzino Iannazzo, who are both alleged bosses of Ndrangheta, an Italian mafia-type organised crime syndicate based in the southwestern region of Calabria.
Right now, there are reportedly 74 mafia bosses over the age of 70 with serious health conditions who are serving sentences under Article 41-bis. It stipulates that the authorities can suspend usual prison entitlements so as to sever bosses’ ties with their criminal associates on the outside.
Italy Considers Easing Lockdown
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has meanwhile pledged that Italy will likely start easing its coronavirus lockdown as of 4 May, in what he said would be a thoroughly calculated step to gradually scrap the confinement that has been in place since 9 March.
He spoke after the country’s Civil Protection Agency said on Monday that the number of new COVID-19 cases in Italy dropped to 2,256, which was the lowest level in over a month. The country remains one of the hardest hit in the world by the coronavirus pandemic as its death toll currently stands at 24,648, the second-hightest after the US, according to the World Health Organisation.