Policeman acquitted of killing
01 August 2002
Police officer Tommaso Leone has had his 10-year sentence for the "voluntary homicide" of 17-year old Mario Castellano overturned on appeal. Leone shot the youth in the back after Castellano failed to stop his moped for a police check in Agnano near Naples on 20 July 2000. His claim that he accidentally fired the shot was contradicted by an eyewitness who described how Leone had "knelt down, aimed and fired" after failing to stop Castellano by chasing his moped, (see Statewatch vol 10 nos 3 & 4).
At his trial in April 2001 (see Statewatch vol 11 nos 3 & 4), conducted under the rito abbreviato (shortened procedure involving hearings in front of a single judge introduced to speed up court cases, which may be chosen by the accused in exchange for discounted sentencing) judge Alfonso Barbarano found Leone guilty. The appeal court, presided over by judge Pietro Lignola, found that "the facts did not constitute a crime", suggesting that it interpreted the firing of the shot as unintentional. Leone's version was that he held the gun as he was hailing Castellano, and that the shot was fired as he slipped trying to stop the youth escaping. The acquittal means that the officer, who was temporarily suspended from duty, may have his suspension revoked.
Castellano's mother Patrizia Battimelli described the acquittal as "scandalous", arguing that "all the evidence in the trial nailed Leone. The site examinations, the witness accounts, his precedents". Castellano's lawyers had claimed that Leone´s record was littered with worrying precedents, including the shooting of a smuggler in his native Apulia region in 1996, for which he was acquitted. She added that she had tried to have the appeal judge changed, but failed to present her request within the deadline. Patrizia Battimelli had found out that before he was selected to hear the case, judge Lignola wrote an article in support of "zero tolerance" in Roma magazine, stating that although he:
cannot accept that a police officer kills a 17-year-old boy who is committing a crime punishable with a fine... I, and many others, cannot accept the exaggerated space that government media has reserved for this very sad event. The unfortunate officer, tried and sentenced without appeal by the media, is a far too convenient a scapegoat
Leone spent 460 days in Santa Maria Capua Vetere military prison until he was released on 29 October 2001, when the appeal court accepted the defence lawyers' argument that the reasons for preventative custody (that he may escape or tamper with evidence) no longer applied. Antonio Ascione, regional secretary of the police trade union SIULP, expressed his satisfaction with the outcome, "once again our trust in the judiciary has been shown to be well placed".
Il Mattino 2.10.02, Repubblica 2.10.02.
Ken Faro and Tariq Mehmood, the co-directors of the film Injustice, an uncompromising documentary produced by Migrant Media which examines black deaths in police custody, won the prestigious BFM (Black Filmmaker Magazine) best documentary film award at the end of September. The film, which highlights the struggles of families to gain justice after the death of a family member in police custody, was officially launched in August 2001, but cinemas were immediately pressurised by the Police Federation to cancel or face a lengthy and expensive legal action.
The "ban" was broken when in August 2001, at a viewing at Conway Hall, London, the film was shown as part of an Inquest and United Friends and Families Campaign public inquiry into deaths in custody. Then the audience barricaded the exits and took over the projector, showing the film in full, despite attempts to disrupt them. The film, highlights the deaths in police custody of Shiji Lapite (see Statewatch vol. 5 no. 1, 4 and vol. 6 no. 1) and Ibrahima Sey (see Statewatch vol. 6 no. 3, vol. 7 no. 6), both of whom were found to have been unlawfully killed by inquests. A third case is that of Brian Douglas (see State