Shooting at the police station, the killer acquitted: "Not attributable". Relatives: "Shame"

After more than 3 hours in the Council Chamber, the Court of Assizes of Trieste acquitted Alejandro Meran , the man who opened fire at the Trieste Police Headquarters, killing the two policemen Matteo Demenego and Pierluigi Rotta on 4 October 2019 , because he was not attributable for mental infirmity. The judges applied a detention security measure of hospitalization in Rems (Residence for the execution of security measures) for at least 30 years . A sentence that was defined by the relatives of the victims as a "shame".

The man is currently in prison in Verona, nursing department, and the sentence does not mean that he can be released from prison: the Chief Prosecutor of Trieste , Antonio De Nicolo, who followed the trial in first person (prosecutor is Federica Riolino) expressed himself clearly on this aspect indicating that " Meran's release will not take place ". "The Ministry will be asked to designate the appropriate Rems" and in the meantime "we will ask the director of the Verona Montorio prison to detain him".

"There is an objective discomfort in saying to close the process in this way - continues De Nicolo - we live in contact with the Police, day by day we encourage them, we groom them, there is a daily symbiosis. But the laws of the process are these ", science" tells us this ". It is "a tragedy, but this is the conclusion of non-imputability." The decision - according to the chief prosecutor, Antonio De Nicolo - is the result of what the trial elements led to believe. It is not that I am very satisfied, because I realize that this is a tragedy that ends leaving a bad taste in the mouth of many, but this is the conclusion needed by the rules we have ".

The acquittal - to ask for the acquittal of the accused, "and not lightly", was the first prosecutor Federica Riolino, at the end of almost an hour of indictment. At the basis of the request, among other things, the results of the psychiatric report requested by the Court, according to which " at the time of the facts Meran was already schizophrenic ": " totally excluded his ability to want ".

In the final plea, the defense, represented by the lawyers Paolo and Alice Bevilacqua, had insisted precisely on "total infirmity": "Our cry goes to the institutions" and to the "fallacy" recorded in the management of the disease, said Paolo Bevilacqua. On the other hand, the request for a sentence had arrived unambiguously from the civil parties . "We will immediately propose an application to the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal" so that he can proceed "to appeal the acquittal sentence, since it is obvious that the Public Prosecutor who requested the acquittal will certainly not appeal the sentence", underlined Valter Biscotti and Ilaria Pignattini leaving the classroom.

THE COMMENT - The criticism of Peppe Dell'Acqua , psychiatrist alongside Basaglia during the opening of the asylum in Trieste, harsh at the time: "It is a sentence that could have been issued in 1935, close to the penal code Rocco, direct son of Lombrosian scientific positivism ". Dell'Acqua disagrees with the idea that you can "reduce a person's entire life to one word because an expert said so. It's worse than life imprisonment." This, despite the fact that the report in question - that of the Court, which declared Meran mentally ill - is "very conscientious". The idea that the psychiatrist had expressed two days ago was that "even Meran could have done a rehabilitation process in prison, where they would have the tools to manage it". Provided that "the commitment had been adequate". This is if half-insanity had been recognized, hence prison.

"A shameful trial, a shameful verdict. I'm ashamed of being Italian", the few words of Demenego's father, Fabio.

THE SHOOTING - It is the afternoon of 4 October 2019 when Meran is accompanied by some agents to the police station for the theft of a moped . With him, who suffers from mental disorders, his brother and mother. Alejandro asks to go to the bathroom: when he goes out he manages to get hold of Rotta's gun and fatally wounds him.

Hearing the shots, Demenego rushes in and in turn is hit and killed . It all happens in minutes. Alejandro tries to take the stairs to the upper floors by shooting some agents. Then he gives up and tries to gain the exit by crossing the hall, holding both guns and firing at the guardsmen. Eventually he is stopped.

(Unioneonline / D)