Polemics continued on Tuesday over Italy's mass prisoner amnesty as the first of thousands of pardoned inmates began trickling out of jail. While families of detainees waited outside prisons across the country for their loved ones to emerge, judges protested that they had no means of topping potentially dangerous convicts from being released and homeowners in the north expressed fear that a wave of violent crime was about to be unleashed on them.
The amnesty was definitively approved by parliament on Saturday with the aim of easing chronic overcrowding in Italy's jails.
Up to 20,000 people are expected to benefit from the pardon, which cuts sentences by three years for crimes committed before May 2, 2006 and slashes as much as 10,000 euros off any fines inflicted. Some 15,500 are expected to be released from prison, including more than 5,000 non-Italians, while the rest will be released from house arrest.
Serious offences such as Mafia crimes, terrorism, rape, paedophilia, kidnapping and human trafficking are excluded and those who re-offend within five years of their release will be made to serve the rest of their original term as well as their new sentence.
Champions of the measure, including Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, the Vatican and prisoner rights' groups, insist the measure is a necessary act of clemency and cite allegedly inhumane conditions inside Italian jails. The country's 205 prisons currently hold 61,400 inmates when their official capacity is just 41,730. Because of Italy's slow and cumbersome trial system, some 36% of inmates are still awaiting definitive convictions.
The first to be released on Tuesday was a 60-year-old Calabrian farmer convicted of murder who was under house arrest. In Rome, a 25-year-old thief was the first out of the city's main Rebibbia jail. In Milan, the honour went to two women sentenced for drug-related crimes who joyfully shouted out "Long live the amnesty!" to a crowd of relatives of journalists gathered outside the prison.
The first to emerge from Turin's jail were two murderers including a woman at the centre of a notorious early 1990s homicide case in which the female victim was initially stored in a freezer and then dissolved in acid. Italian newspapers have been full of lists of famous murderers who will benefit from the amnesty.
Meanwhile, the justice minister pledged protective measures for an elderly mother who threatened to commit suicide because her violent son was set to be released. Judges explained that they were unable to screen cases to prevent potentially dangerous inmates from being released.
They stressed that in applying the amnesty, they were only allowed to examine whether the crime committed was on the list of excluded offences.
In an interview published by the La Repubblica daily, the head of Rome's parole court, Giovanni Tamburino, said that "assessments of social danger are not permitted... The application (of the amnesty) is automatic and immediate". Tamburino criticised lawmakers for rushing the measure through parliament.
"It should have been thought through more carefully and less hastily. This is a massive amnesty and the social consequences will be proportionately serious," he said.
Meanwhile, homeowners in the north, which has seen a surge in violent robberies over the last two years, were alarmed over the number of burglars about to be released.
In Milan alone, almost 360 are due to be freed even though the surrounding region of Lombardy has the highest armed robbery rate of all Italian regions. A separate protest was raised by the families of the victims of a 2001 disaster at Milan's Linate airport in which 118 people died.
Since the amnesty applies to crimes committed before May 2006, it also applies to sentences which have yet to be handed down, including ones in the on-going Linate trial in which eight defendants have yet to be definitively sentenced on manslaughter charges.
The impact on future sentences was one of the objections raised by Infrastructure Minister Antonio Di Pietro, who went against his own coalition in opposing the measure. Di Pietro, a famous former anti-graft prosecutor whoheads his own small party, fought fiercely to get financial, accounting and corruption crimes excluded from the amnesty. He accused parties in the centre-left government of doing a deal with Forza Italia, the opposition party headed by former premier Silvio Berlusconi, which insisted on these crimes being included.
Since amnesty measures require the approval of two-thirds of parliament, the law would have sunk without opposition backing.
As it stands, the amnesty could benefit Cesare Previti, a close aide of Berlusconi who has been sentenced to six years for bribing judges and is now under house arrest.
Di Pietro says it could also help Berlusconi, who is to stand trial for alleged fraud at his private TV network Mediaset; those involved in the bank takeover probe which led to the resignation of Bank of Italy Governor Antonio Fazio;and those on trial for the fraudulent bankruptcy of dairy
giant Parmalat.
According to the recent book Honourable Men Wanted written by a group of top political journalists, almost 10% of Italian lawmakers are either on trial, awaiting an appeal or has a conviction.
Critics of the amnesty accused parliament of trying to minimise public outcry over the amnesty by rushing it through parliament during the summer with limited debate. But Minister Mastella defended the measure as a "noble gesture of clemency" and dedicated the law to the late pope
John Paul II, who appealed for a far-reaching amnesty in a historic address to parliament in November 2002.
Justice Undersecretary Luigi Manconi said on Tuesday that "no emergency or threat has been created. For the most part, we are talking about poor souls... The situation is under control".
Italian prisoner rights' association Antigone urged parliament to now set about reforming the prison system. "The amnesty has gone through and has provided a unique opportunity for addressing the problems of Italian jails," it said.
