Graziano Mesina is dead. The former bandit from Orgosolo had turned 83 last April 4: yesterday he had left the Opera prison to be transferred to the hospital due to a terminal illness.
He was unable to move and defined as "not transportable": yesterday, Messina had been transferred to house arrest in the prison ward of the San Paolo in Milan. For the third time in his life, the former red primrose of Sardinian banditry had left prison, this time not for an escape or for a pardon, but for very serious health reasons.
The decision
The Milan Surveillance Court had accepted the request for a deferral of sentence for health reasons presented by his lawyers, Beatrice Goddi and Maria Luisa Vernier, after an oncological pathology, "now widespread and incurable", had been diagnosed in the former fugitive, already detained for two years in the Opera prison. The last time, Messina was hospitalized in the prison ward of San Paolo last February 21 and here - a few days after his admission - he also fell and hit his head, demonstrating a physical condition that was now seriously compromised. His conditions had long been considered precarious, but in the last two months they have further worsened . He was no longer walking, he was not eating, he was not speaking and he had difficulty recognizing people.
IMAGES OF THE LATEST ARREST IN DESULO
www.unionesarda.it/multimedia/desulo-le-immagini-dell-arresto-di-mesina-e218fxlr?page=13His lawyers say that for months, Messina refused in-depth examinations and medical tests, a resistance that was initially interpreted as hostility due to a condition of senile dementia. Only now has it been understood that behind those refusals was actually a much more serious and terminal illness. Despite repeated alarms and seven requests for suspension of the sentence, previously rejected, the Court had until yesterday maintained the measure of detention in prison, also by virtue of the reports of the General Prosecutor of Cagliari that insisted on the “persistent current dangerousness” of the prisoner.
Yesterday he was placed under house arrest. However, in the order signed by the magistrate of the Surveillance Court of Milan, Giovanni Gerosa, Messina is defined as a "patient who cannot be transported" and for this reason he will have to remain at the San Paolo in Milan. The doctors themselves, in the latest report, underline the seriousness of the conditions, explaining to the judge how "he can be transferred to the hospital department most suitable for his clinical conditions".
The family was waiting for him
A measure that was still too tight for the lawyers of the man from Orgosolo, who insisted that a way be found for Mesina to return home to live out his last days with his family . "We have already presented a new request to the Surveillance Court," declared the lawyer Beatrice Goddi, "asking that the house arrest be modified to allow Graziano Mesina to choose where he can receive more adequate care. Alternatively," she added, " we ask that he be transferred to his hometown , Orgosolo, to face the last phase of his life there."
Death
But the system moved too slowly: Messina died in a hospital bed, far from Sardinia. Harsh, in this sense, attacks by the PD parliamentarian Silvio Lai and the guarantor of prisoners Irene Testa .
