He was transferred as a punishment to the Uta prison, under high surveillance or, better said, special surveillance for a blatant video call with Baby Gang, during the Primo Maggio concert. Thus, after the search of his cell and the discovery of a cell phone by the Penitentiary Police officers, the rapper Vincenzo “Niko” Pandetta was sent from the Palermo Ucciardone prison to Sardinia, far from friends and loved ones. Now, defended by the lawyer Riccardo Floris, the artist who became famous for the song “Pistole nella fendi”, has signed a petition to ask the Court of Cagliari to revoke article 14bis, the high surveillance that confines him to the island and limits his life as a prisoner. But in the meantime he has also denounced in a letter the shortcomings of the Sardinian penitentiary.

The story

Last May 1st, at the One day music festival concert, the rapper Baby Gang allegedly made a video call from the stage with the co-author of his song, Niko Pandetta, nephew of the mafia boss Turi Cappello, detained since October 2022 in the Palermo prison for drug dealing. A gesture filmed by many of those present who then posted the videos on social media, hence the investigation and the search that uncovered the cell phone. After that incident, the Head of the Department of Penitentiary Administration decided to apply the 14bis to the 34-year-old for 6 months, urgently transferring him to the Uta prison.

The instance

Lawyer Riccardo Floris filed an appeal against this provision to the Surveillance Court, but in recent days the rapper wrote a letter to the magistrate and the Guarantor for inmates to denounce the conditions of the inmates of Uta. "In the current institute," writes Niko Pandetta, "there is a lack of respect and non-observance of the laws recognized to guarantee with decorum and dignity the identity of the inmate." From health issues to relationships with the family, from nutrition to cell conditions, the artist has illustrated everything that - in his opinion - would make life more difficult for the prison population of the "Ettore Scalas" penitentiary. Now it will be up to the Surveillance Judge to decide what to do.

The artist

Niko Pandetta, definitively sentenced for escape and drug trafficking, will finish serving his sentence in about a year. The rapper from Catania was arrested in October 2022 to serve 4 years. In his songs he talks about the difficulties of his life and speaks openly about the mafia, from the inside, as someone who knows certain dynamics, even if he has tried to redeem himself several times. He was overwhelmed by controversy for a song dedicated to his uncle, the boss Salvatore “Turi” Cappello, but then achieved success with the single 'Pistole nella Fendi' («Maresciallo non mi Prendi»). «The special surveillance regime applied to Mr. Pandetta», writes his lawyer, Riccardo Floris, «in addition to having been hired in violation of the law, entails, in practice, a notable and unjust disparity of treatment between him and the other inmates who have been responsible for similar infractions, with the consequence that this decision risks irreparably undermining the resocialization process of the convicted person». That is to say, others who had their phones found in their cells were not given the same treatment: they were transferred from one island to another and confined under special surveillance.

Francis Pinna

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