The blindfolding of a detained person is not a measure of hardship permitted by Italian law and , in any case, no specific animus nocendi is required with regard to the detained person but only the awareness of adopting an abnormal restrictive measure.
With Article 608 of the Criminal Code, which necessarily must now be read in the light of the fundamental principle set forth in Article 13 of the Constitution, the legislature has deemed, in such delicate situations as those resulting from the deprivation of an individual's liberty, to legitimize only and exclusively those "measures of hardship" that are expressly "permitted by law" and not already those that are not expressly excluded or prohibited by it (as the Defense seems to argue).
The purpose of protecting the detained man's safety by the affixing of that blindfold is given in itself scarcely probable, but it could easily have been achieved by driving away his attackers.
The court fails to fully understand the relationship between blindfolding an individual in a context such as that which clearly emerged at trial and the need to tranquilize him, holding that, unlike birds of prey when they are deprived of visual stimuli, a human being who has just been attacked in that manner should, on the exact contrary, become much more agitated as he could not even see whether someone was about to strike him and from where the threat was coming and in any case could not even understand, by moving his head, whether he was in danger of hitting some object that was in his immediate vicinity.
Although it is unfortunate to state this since we are dealing with members of the Carabinieri Corps, it appears quite likely that the first witnesses who were excused, before knowing the defense line, tended to downplay the serious events that occurred inside the barracks at the time of the arrival of the two U.S. citizens held responsible for the death of their colleague and tried to reconstruct a situation of near-normality by excluding aggression, threats, spitting posed to the prejudice of the two detained and tried to justify the unusual presence of that substantial number of subjects present in that barracks with the mere curiosity to see the faces of those responsible for the murder of their colleague or to witness their detention.
The gesture of blindfolding today's offended person can find only one identifiable justification in the need to prevent the detained person from memorizing the faces of those who might attack him at that juncture, and thus the conduct for which the case is being prosecuted, far from being intended to protect, had been put in place for the purpose of protecting some carabiniere from consequences prejudicial to him where he was later recognized as one of those who had beaten him or had gratuitously inflicted violence on him.
(judgment of first instance, not final)
COURT OF ROME
SECTION I CRIMINAL
Judgment 2832/2023 - Feb. 24, 2023 (dep. May 22, 2023)
The Court of Rome, sitting as single judge in the person of Dr. Alfonso Sabella in the hearing of February 24, 2023, pronounced and published by reading the operative part the following
JUDGMENT
In the case against:
M , born in ** on **
Defended in confidence by Attorney RDVand by Attorney VG
Free, present
IMPUTED (in order to the crime p. and p. by Article 608 of the Criminal Code, because, as a public official to whom he was temporarily entrusted CH subjected him to a measure of hardship not permitted by law (in particular, he affixed a band to his face to cover his eyes). Committed in Rome, 07/26/2019).
In these proceedings it appears, in addition, constituted
1) PERSON OFFENDED born in ** Defended by Attorney FP.
CONCLUSIONS:
PM (prosecutor): sentence to three months' imprisonment, after granting general extenuating circumstances.
Defender of civil plaintiff: sentence to the penalty deemed just, damages and payment of court costs in favor of the civil plaintiff. Deposit written conclusions and bill of costs. Defendant's counsel: acquittal because the fact does not exist or does not constitute a crime.
THE TRIAL
By writ of summons dated September 6, 2021, the present defendant was brought to trial before the Court of Rome in monocratic composition to answer for the crime under Article 608 of the Criminal Code committed against the OFFENDED PERSON.
After a preliminary adjournment (hearing of January 11, 2022) determined by a legitimate impediment of the defendant, at the hearing of February 8, 2022, with the defendant present and with the constituted civil plaintiff, the trial was opened and oral and documentary evidence requested by the Parties was admitted as per the order on file.
The pre-trial investigation began at the following hearing on April 5, 2022 with the examination of the witnesses of the Prosecutor. *** continued at the subsequent hearing on May 25, 2022 with the examination of two other witnesses of the P.M. namely, the offended person Gabriel Christian Natale Hjorth, detained and for this purpose translated to the hearing, and ***.
After a postponement determined by the absence due to illness of the titular judge (June 22, 2022), at the hearing of September 7, 2022, ** was excused as a person under investigation for a related or connected crime, and the C.T. of the P.M. was examined. ** who had examined the computer media acquired during the investigation.
The absence of **, the witness of the Plaintiff, resulted in the postponement of the hearing on November 4, 2022, and at the following hearing on November 11, 2022, the latter was examined and the defendant was examined; the Defense filed documentation
At the hearing on November 30, 2022, the witnesses adduced by the Defense ***, ... were then examined, and during their examination photographic documentation produced by the Civil Plaintiff was acquired.
The pre-trial investigation was completed at the hearing of January 20, 2023 with the examination of the last two witnesses adduced by the Defense, ** and ***, and at today's hearing, having formally declared the pre-trial investigation closed, the Parties concluded as per the epigraph.
GROUNDS FOR THE DECISION
The facts in these proceedings stem from the investigations initiated following the murder, which occurred on the night between July 25 and 26, 2019, of Deputy Brigadier of the Carabinieri CARABINIERE on duty at the Piazza Farnese Station, and, in particular, from the identification, as possible perpetrators of the crime, of U.S. citizens *** and Gabriel Christian Natale Hjorth, traced the following morning at the Hotel Le Méridien and, therefore, taken to the offices of Via In Selci of the Carabinieri Investigative Unit of Rome.
It is well to point out at once how completely unrelated to the present proceedings are the events that led to the murder of the Carabinieri NCO and the identification of the two suspects as well as the isolated elements in the subsequent investigations against the latter, in the Carabinieri barracks when one of the two U.S. citizens brought there, Gabriel Christian Natale Hjorth, had been blindfolded by today's defendant in the course of the procedures for his detention.
In spite of the number of testimonial evidence acquired and the certainly not short duration of the trial instruction, the reconstruction of the facts underlying the accusatory approach is exceedingly easy since almost all the witnesses examined, with the exception of a few smears to be mentioned below and some superfetations and omissions, reported what they knew in relation to the facts that are of most interest here (the blindfolding of Hjorth and the environmental situation in the barracks) in a manner that was practically superimposable among themselves and in accordance with the objective evidence acquired, reason why it appears objectively superfluous and unnecessarily defatiguing to go over in detail the various depositions being able, on the contrary, to refer to the defendant's own statements which, in the same way and with the exception of a few minor elements, as to the reconstruction of the facts, are compatible with almost all the other oral evidence acquired (and in only one point, concerning the duration of the bandaging, appear to differ from the objective evidence - cf. infra).
FM, in the course of his examination, reported that, on the night of July 25-26, 2019, while resting, he had been contacted by one of his superiors, Captain FS, who informed him of the murder of Brigadier CARABINIERE , on duty at the Carabinieri Station in Rome Piazza Farnese, and invited him to immediately take up duty together with the other military members of his investigation team and to go to the barracks in Via In Selci to start investigating the case.
On the basis of information acquired in the early stages from two people who had witnessed the incident, Carabiniere VA, a colleague of CARABINIERE , and such SB, and who were already in the offices on Via In Selci, Fabio Manganare, together with Marshal FM, had decided to contact a source of his own from whom he had learned that, contrary to what had been believed up to that point, the attackers of the petty officer in Piazza Farnese were not of North African origin.
Returning to the office, M had still left to go to the home of B's sister but in the meantime, it was already about 11:30 a.m., he was contacted by someone and invited to go immediately to the Le Méridien hotel where he arrived shortly thereafter in the unmarked car in which he was in the company of M.
In front of the hotel he was invited by Marshal L who was on the spot to go to the garage located on the basement floor where the two subjects suspected of carrying out the murder of CARABINIERE were expected to be taken .
According to the reconstructions of Mar. M, confirmed by all the witnesses who witnessed or otherwise took part in that phase of the affair, shortly thereafter, accompanied by other military personnel, arrived E, who took a seat in a vehicle that had positioned itself in front of the one driven by the defendant, and then today's Hjorth who was made to get into the unmarked car driven by the defendant.
On M's car, in addition to Hjorth who was positioned in the middle of the back seat, were M, who was seated on the front passenger side, and on either side of today's offended person, Marshal SD and Appunto SDV had positioned themselves.
Hjorth, unlike E, would have been very "agitated" so much so that, as, among others, Col. LDA, Commander pro tempore of the Investigation Unit, also reported, the device established by the officer to accompany him to the barracks included four men and not three as had been the case with E.
On the instruction of M, Hjorth had been handcuffed with his hands in front (see on this point also the conforming statements of Mar. D - p. 25), and not behind as was normally done, because the NCO feared that the detained man would make unconscious movements during the journey and end up injuring himself.
Indeed, all the witnesses excused on the point confirmed that Hjorth, in contrast to E who appeared in an almost soporific state, gave clear signs of nervousness produced himself in sudden movements and sudden jerks.
On the basis of the defendant's recollections, around 12:30 (indeed, on the exact times the various protagonists of the affair have given very approximate indications, an eventuality easily explained by the undoubted excitement of those moments but it is undoubted - cf. advice of Eng. C in relation to the actual time of some photos found in the phones examined and of which we will say
- that the times indicated by M should be anticipated by about fifteen minutes at least) had left the hotel using the acoustic and visual devices (siren and flashing light) with which the vehicle was equipped and had arrived at the barracks, according to M, around 12:45 p.m., preferring to access it from a rear entrance, the one on Via delle Sette Sale, in order to evade journalists and onlookers who had already gone in front of the main entrance on Via In Selci.
Once they had entered the forecourt accessed by the driveway door on Via delle Sette Sale, preceded by the car in which E was sitting, M parked the vehicle and, after the military men who had E in custody had set out to lead the latter to the office, he and the men of the crew also prepared to do the same with Hjorth.
It is good at this point to provide a description of the places, which, very appropriately, the P.M. had reproduced with photographic positives, progressive with respect to the route taken by M and attached to the service record of July 19, 2019 acquired in the records during the hearing of April 5, 2022.
From the very clear images present m acts and from what was reported at the hearing by Marshal CG, it can be seen that the forecourt accessed from the driveway door on Via delle Sette Sale (photo 1) is elevated above the level where the offices of the Investigation Unit are located and reached via an external flight of stairs (photos 6 to 11) that ends in front of a brick barbecue (photo 12).
Arriving at the lower level, where there is a large space, also outside, characterized by a kind of flower bed with statues and palm trees (photo I! ), on the left for those descending the stairs, there is a pedestrian walkway (photos 13 and 14) that leads to a door characterized by two jambs made of wooden slats (photo 15) and then by a counter door with glass in the upper part for about 2/3 of the height on which blinds are installed (photo 16), a door from which one enters the room of the First Section of the Investigation Unit (photos 18 and 19) where the events of interest here occurred, a room that has another exit to a corridor inside the structure (cf. Mar. G's statements, among others).
According to the statements of M, but also of D, DV and M, the four military personnel, having parked the car, had made Hjorth get out and led him (M and D) down the stairs and then, having walked down the pedestrian walkway, into the office of the First Section.
In the open space on the lower level there were numerous people in both uniform and plainclothes, and from one of the office doors accessed from that lobby, out came Carabiniere AV who, having evidently recognized the detained man in one of the two individuals who had taken part in the murder of CARABINIERE, hurled himself at Hjorth, at that moment squeezed between M and D who were holding him by the arms, shouting "that's him" and trying to kick him.
M ordered V to move away but the latter desisted only after a further vain attempt to hit Hjorth and then the two carabinieri, accompanied the U.S. boy inside the First Section office (that, precisely of M) where, however, there was a large group of people, again made up of uniformed and civilian subjects, and where four of these, who would later be learned to be military personnel from the Famese Square Station and therefore particularly related to the slain Brigadier, were lashing out at Hjorth whom M was trying to protect by interposing himself between the attackers and the detained man. As a result of the determined parapilla, M and Hjorth ended up on the floor while other individuals in the room tried to block the carabinieri from Piazza Farnese who tried to hit the detained man with kicks, kicks, which, according to the defendant, ended up drawing instead on him who had been lying on the U.S. citizen to protect him.
Again the CC lieutenant and SI marshal intervened and restored a modicum of calm by removing the most exaggerated from the office. Before getting Hjorth back up, M, with the assistance of Marshal CS, removed the handcuffs he still had ahead and put them back behind him by crossing his hands behind the detained man's shoulders and then sat him down on a chair.
Hjorth was very agitated and moved abruptly back and forth also trying to wriggle out, and at this point, M, noticing that a scarf was hanging in a coat hanger, had it passed to him by a colleague and blindfolded the eyes of the stopped man to whom he addressed in a calm tone telling him that if he did not get agitated anymore and was quiet he would remove the blindfold and the handcuffs as well.
According to M, his maneuver of affixing a blindfold on the eyes of Hjorth had been successful in that the stopped man would calm down a bit.
M then left his office as he was recalled to another room, entrusting Hjorth to Officer B and advising the latter not to let anyone approach the stopped man. The defendant stayed out of the room for about 4 or 5 minutes and when he returned he found Carabiniere AV asking Hjorth questions, reasoning that he complained to B for transgressing his instructions (I' App. B confirmed at trial the same reconstruction of these facts).
According to M, V was asking the stopped man for general news, but when he went into specifics by asking the U.S. citizen about a pink or red sweatshirt, he interrupted him and invited him to leave the room.
b made it clear to M that he had made v approach the stopped man because someone had arranged for the latter's voice to be recorded for the purpose of making a comparison with other acquired speech data (see on this point also N's statements) so much so that an officer, perhaps Major A, had told the defendant immediately afterwards to accompany v to the offices of the 7' Section to pour out a recording.
Back in the office, at that point, M removed handcuffs and blindfolds from the Hjorth and also had him bring a small bottle of water (see also ***'s statement on the point).
V had in fact proceeded to record a short video of the detained person with the blindfold (a circumstance that was absolutely peaceful and confirmed at trial by Mar. G who acquired the cell phone of the carabiniere who was with CARABINIERE on the evening of the murder as well as by Mar. N and LR of Piazza Farnese and the former also recognized V's voice from the audio heard at the hearing), video that would later become public knowledge.
Already in the evening of the following day, Saturday, July 27, 2019, however, it emerged that in various chats of members of the Arma a photograph circulated reproducing Hjorth blindfolded (a photo allegedly taken by another military member, a certain P - cf. deposition of Col. DA) and, around 8:30 p.m. on that July 27, M was thus contacted by telephone by Capt. FS who asked him if he knew anything about the affair.
M confirmed to his superior that it was indeed he who had placed the blindfold on the eyes of Hjorth PERSON, and immediately afterwards he was called by telephone by Col. DA, Commander of the Investigation Unit, to whom he reiterated that it was he who had blindfolded the detained man, explaining to him the reasons why he had considered taking that objectively unusual measure.
M immediately showed himself willing to draw up a service report on the incident, but at the request of the Officer who represented to him the absence of a special urgency, he decided to postpone its drafting until the following Monday; however, the following day, Sunday, July 28, 2019, the affair had by then become public knowledge, which is why M, who was out of Rome, at the request of Captain S, immediately returned to the Capital and filed his service report that same day with Colonel DA.
The above is the reconstruction of the facts (obviously of those directly relevant for the purposes here) that the defendant provided during his interrogation, a reconstruction which, as anticipated, is substantially in accordance with a great deal of other declarative evidence acquired at the trial.
Indeed, almost all of the witnesses who were excised about the condition of the Hjorth confirmed that at the time of his detention at the Le Méridien hotel (Dv and D) he, unlike E, "was agitated and was going back and forth in the room, so we tried to calm him down and then . returned back" (** and **, the latter of whom specified that he had arranged for four to accompany him, an eventuality also confirmed by D and implicitly by S, p. 7, and by B), that he continued to agitate himself even in the car" (**), and was always agitated once he was taken to the offices (**, albeit after a specific rebuttal, **).
Similarly, all of the witnesses who were excused confirmed the presence of a great number of people on the forecourt located on the lower level at the time when M and D were accompanying Hjorth to the office where the events took place (**) and also inside the office (**, who even speaks of about thirty people, **).
If the above data appear objectively peaceful the same cannot indeed be said for some of the eventualities reported by M insofar as, individually, none of the witnesses excised before his examination - and in particular, for what specifically concerns, the two members of the crew that had led Hjorth to the Barracks, **, and two of the soldiers from Piazza Farnese present in Via In Selci, ** - had dealt with V's assault on Hjorth while M and D were leading him down the outside stairs, and even DV seemed to decisively rule it out even though it must have taken place before his eyes (cf. p. 30 of the relevant transcript).
Similarly, DV does not discuss at all the paraphernalia that allegedly occurred inside the office and that had resulted in M and the Hjorth falling to the ground and the subsequent change in the position of the handcuffs, and claims that M had immediately blindfolded the offended person upon entering the offices even though the witness according to his statements, followed the two marshals leading the detained person and had witnessed the entire scene until the latter was blindfolded (Mz does not describe that event either, but the latter, had gone to park his car and would have entered the room when Hjorth was already seated and was already blindfolded or, in any case - cf. P.M.'s contentions at the time of the examination - while M was blindfolding him).
Indeed, not even the two soldiers from Piazza Farnese who were excised before the examination of the defendant, N and LR who were on site at the time of Hjorth's arrival on the lower forecourt in the company of V and then at the entrance of the detained person into the room, dealt with V's aggression, the altercation in the office (of which they must also have been direct protagonists) and the change of position of the handcuffs but it is worth pointing out how their statements are characterized by significant inaccuracies.
Indeed, not only does N deal with about thirty people present in the office, a fact objectively incompatible with the limited size of the room as evidenced by the photographs in the record and the presence of various desks and furnishings, but he asserts, despite having seen Hjorth arrive handcuffed (see p. 14 and objection made by the Prosecutor) and having witnessed the moment when V made the video that he did not notice M bandaging Hjorth.
In contrast, LR, who alleged to be in the company of V and N, claims-and only following repeated objections made by the P.M. - that he saw Hjorth on his stomach on the ground without handcuffs fidgeting and three or four carabinieri trying to put handcuffs on him, states that the scarf with which M had then blindfolded Hjorth the defendant had taken out of a pocket, that he had then witnessed the blindfolding (N who was with him, on the other hand, claims not to have seen that scene) and above all, like N, affirms an eventuality belied by all the other statements and that is that E and Hjorth had entered almost simultaneously from the corridor inside the offices and not from the glass door leading into the lower outside lobby.
On the other hand, the statements of the witnesses adduced by the Defense and excised after the examination of the defendant appear to be decidedly consistent with, if not overlapping with, M's statements, in that:
S and D treat V's assault on Hjorth in perfectly identical manner to what M reported;
S reports the whole affair exactly as M described it (assault by the military in Piazza Farnese, falling on the ground, moving the handcuffs, bandaging, etc.);
I, who was working in another room and had intervened as a result of the hubbub coming from the one where the events took place, confirms that he saw both M and Hjorth on the floor and intervened to restore calm by having the numerous people in that room leave, before walking away without having witnessed the bandaging;
C, although excused hastily and who, although he does not report the fall to the ground, discusses the attempts to assault Hjorth made by the soldiers in Piazza Farnese;
- B, who made up the crew that had taken E to Via In Selci and who dealt with a spit directed by V at the latter, had entered the offices of the First Section after hearing the hubbub that had shortly before also determined I to intervene and had seen Hjorth already seated, handcuffed and blindfolded; in relation to the subsequent events, slavishly confirmed what the defendant had claimed (momentary entrusting of Hjorth to his custody, V's return to the room to make the alleged phonic comparison, M's return and intervention to remove V again, etc. ).
Before examining the reconstruction of the facts provided by the offended person, which, as was to be expected, presents some divergence with the reconstructions made so far, it is good to carry out a brief reflection with regard to the correct key to be identified in order to overcome the above-mentioned discrepancies between the various testimonies, a key which, too hastily, might be identified in the fact that the witnesses who fully corroborate M's statements are precisely those - and only those - adduced by the Defense and heard after the defendant, their colleague and probably their friend, had given his version of the facts at trial.
The Tribunal does not believe it adheres to such a simplification because, although it is unfortunate to state this since they were members of the Carabinieri Corps, it appears quite likely that the first witnesses excised, before knowing M's line of defense, tended to minimize the serious events that occurred inside the barracks at the time of the arrival of the two U.S. citizens held responsible for the death of their colleague and tried to reconstruct a situation of near normality by excluding assaults, threats spitting carried out to the detriment of the two detainees, and trying to justify the unusual presence of that substantial number of subjects present in that barracks (the Plaintiff correctly brought out, through his repeated questions, the superficiality with which all those people had been allowed, many of them unrelated to the Investigation Unit and in part even to the Carabinieri, to have access, without real reasons for service, to that barracks) with the mere curiosity of seeing the faces of those responsible for the murder of their colleague or of witnessing their arrest.
Indeed, from the messages exchanged within a chat room composed of various members of the Carabinieri, it is evident how, in those hours, the anger of the murdered serviceman's colleagues toward the alleged perpetrators had mounted exponentially, so much so that in those messages, extrapolated by Eng. C from the cell phone in use at ** and acquired to the trial file, one can read expressions that certainly do no credit to those who, not only, would be called upon to perform their public functions with absolute impartiality and in compliance with the constitutional dictates of Art. 54, paragraph 2, c.p, but to those who are charged, in relation to the institutional role they hold, precisely with protecting the fundamental rights of the individual from undue aggression by third parties.
One only has to quickly scroll through that chat to find unworthy expressions such as, "beat them to death," "let's hope they end up like Cucchi," "kill them as much as you can," "a few blows to the balls he'll take," "and good for him if he only takes a few, this piece of shit," "don't tell me to just arrest them. They must take the beating, You must lock them in a room and kill,"', etc.
Similarly, the other chats of ** who, despite the fact that, as we have seen, at the hearing he did not report any aggression or violence committed against the Hjorth, are very clear, confides to such Nicola, on the afternoon of that July 26, that he "threw a slap" when "they took him to the operations department" and that he was blocked by other colleagues who, however, "in the meantime threw knees on his chest," although in LR's opinion "they did not raise their hands that much," finally agreeing with his interlocutor that the "best revenge" would be to "squash them in acid."
It is not the case to proceed further with the expressions present in the further chats of LR who repeatedly confirms to his colleagues that he had at least slapped Hjorth, ("death penalty," "want to kill," "cut his balls off") and in those of three other soldiers from the Piazza Farnese Station and in particular CS ("lat sfunnat e mazza/ .. sti bastardi?" "I do ... and colleagues as well ... c I spoke ... in my own way ... then they kicked me out"; "this morning I would have killed him"; "I would have killed him with my bare hands ... until I deformed his/ her face ... they took him off me ... I had to kill him") clearly emerges the climate of tension and aggression present in the barracks of Via In Selci at the time of the facts for which we are proceeding and the very special resentment harbored toward the detained by the colleagues of the slain petty officer, a resentment perhaps humanly understandable but certainly not justifiable - and least of all in the above terms - in members of the Carabinieri, especially when they do nothing to conceal it and openly manifest it to other military personnel who were in any case in physical contact with the detainees at that moment (in the chats there are photos of and E inside the hotel room sitting on the bed for which it is exceedingly evident the relationship of the chat participants with subjects who, in addition to LR, had in custody the detainees or were participating in the detention operations).
Indeed, Hjortth described, obviously from his point of view, various gratuitous rapes he alleged to have suffered in that context, representing how, since before he was placed in the service vehicle at Le Méridien hotel, someone, despite the fact that he was basically quiet and had not taken drugs or alcohol, had put a tablecloth on his head and that, during the car ride, in which he moved around trying to raise his head, he had received, in the car, a few elbows from the two military personnel standing next to him and also from the one sitting in the front passenger side seat (cf. p. 42)
Upon arriving at the barracks, after descending some stairs, he had been taken to the office (which he recognized in the photos exhibited to him) and, at that moment, the tablecloth had been removed from his head and he had been almost immediately thrown to the ground, kneed and then handcuffed, pointing out that during the journey from the hotel to the barracks he had instead had his hands free and no handcuffs had been applied.
They had then made him sit on a chair and blindfolded him and he had remained in that position for "at least half an hour, even 45 minutes, an hour" (and as will be seen from the examination of some objective data, the time figure provided by Hjorth on the duration of the blindfold is the most likely one) until someone had arranged for the blindfold to be removed.
Hjorth dealt with uniformed and plainclothes persons present in the room at the time of his arrival and when, subsequently, the blindfold would be removed and reported that, while he was blindfolded, he had been questioned by someone in relation to a red sweatshirt and claimed that he had been subjected to threats, when it was also represented to him that his minutes were numbered; he then stated that, when his blindfold was later removed, among the persons present in the room he had also identified V who repeatedly addressed him asking if he knew him.
It is clear that the elements in the trial file, beginning with the results of the medical examination carried out at the time of the two detainees' entry into the prison, which excluded bruises, injuries and signs of beatings (see relevant documentation produced by the Prosecutor's Office. ) do not allow the additional conduct attributed by the crime victim to, more or less identifiable, members of the Carabinieri Force (with particular reference to those committed inside the car and to the tablecloth allegedly placed on his head, a fact that no one other than him has dealt with) to be effectively proven beyond reasonable doubt, but certainly his statements give the measure, together with the data emerging from the assertions of M and the defense witnesses and the tenor of the messages mentioned above, at least of the decidedly hostile and aggressive attitude held toward him by several individuals present in Via In Selci (and especially by the soldiers of the Piazza Farnese Station, colleagues and friends of the slain petty officer).
The aforementioned elements thus make it possible to substantially adhere to the reconstruction of the facts as a whole provided by the defendant who, in extreme synthesis, represented, at the time of his arrival in Via In Selci, an environmental context made particularly complex by the uncontrolled and wholly inappropriate and unreasonable presence, in the square and inside the offices, of numerous subjects some of whom were animated by a vindictive spirit toward the detained man he had in custody and whom, as almost all the defense witnesses actually confirmed, he had somehow tried to protect from the wrath of some of his colleagues.
Having said this, it is therefore necessary, finally entering the merits of the present proceedings, to turn to the question of whether the reasons given by M as to why he had considered blindfolding Hjorth were those which really existed and whether, in any case, they could be considered such as to justify such an anomalous initiative taken against a detained person.
On the absolute anomaly of the measure adopted by the NCO now accused there cannot, in concrete terms, be any doubts whatsoever since not only is the same not expressly provided for (and the datum is not merely formal) by any legal provision, but the totality of the witnesses to whom the relative question has been posed in the present proceedings have excluded, despite the fact that they are subjects with several years of experience in judicial police activities, that they have ever proceeded or witnessed the blindfolding of a detained person, a procedure in fact that is certainly not part of the operational practices of the Italian Police Forces.
It is immediately worth pointing out that Article 608 of the Criminal Code expressly punishes "the public official, who subjects a person arrested or detained of whom he has custody to measures of hardship not permitted by law," reasoning that the relevant fact of crime can be excluded only when the measures of hardship imposed on the person deprived of personal freedom are instead "permitted by law."
It is necessary, in other words, that the restrictive measures adopted, among which inevitably must be included that aimed at preventing a subject from using his or her visual capacities, are-expressly permitted by a provision having the force of law or in any case, taking into account the era in which the incriminating norm was introduced into our penal system and at all willing to concede hermeneutically (and ignoring, for the moment and for favor rei, Art. 13 of the Constitution and its corollaries) by a secondary provision legitimately enacted following a legislative measure.
The Defense has produced a vademecum entitled "Action Procedures for Carabinieri Armed Forces Servicemen in Institute Services," which, among other things, provides indications, suggestions, even common sense, and provisions on the procedures to be adopted in the event of arrest or detention, and-beyond the legal significance that such a manual or vademecum as it may be ends up assuming-in no passage of it is derived the possibility of depriving, even for brief moments the detained or arrested person of his or her visus not even in cases "of arrest of a particularly dangerous person or one who shows signs of resistance to the action of the military," reasoning that it is all too easy to conclude how the blindfolding of the crime victim by the accused must be considered a measure of rigour not permitted by law (nor even by secondary provisions, granted, that these are possibly sufficient to legitimize it).
Although the incriminating provision does not require the specific intent to inflict gratuitous harassment on the passive subject but the mere consciousness and will to adopt those measures not permitted by law, the latter consciousness and will clearly isolable in the head of M, it certainly does not follow from this, sic et simpliciter, the criminal liability of the latter who may have acted in any case in the presence of a cause of justification (and in this sense in fact the Defense concludes by invoking the state of necessity), but before addressing the relevant issue it is necessary, also for the sake of completeness, to point out how the incriminating provision in question has a content, at the same time, broader and narrower than art. 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
In fact, while on the one hand, even a measure of hardship (to use the dated terms of the code) regularly provided for by law could violate the aforementioned art. 3 if that treatment, even if permitted by a signatory state, ends up being considered inhuman or degrading in any case (think of the problems currently existing in relation to certain limitations established by art. 41 bis, para. 2, O.P. and the related decisions of the European Court of Human rights, ECtHR), on the other hand, nothing prevents the latter, through its domestic legislation, so to speak, from softening the threshold of tolerability of nonetheless harassing behavior towards apprehended or arrested subjects and, therefore, prohibiting those who have them in custody from restrictive conduct which, even if it cannot be considered, according to the EtCHR in themselves inhuman or degrading, are not, by the State, deemed functionally necessary to the purpose pursued.
"the public official, who subjects a person arrested or detained of whom he has custody to measures of hardship not permitted by law," reasoning that the relevant fact of crime can be excluded only when the measures of hardship imposed on the person deprived of personal freedom are instead "permitted by law."
In this sense, with Article 608 of the Criminal Code, which must necessarily be read today in the light of the fundamental principle set forth in Article 13 of the Constitution, the legislature has deemed, in such delicate situations as those resulting from the deprivation of an individual's liberty, to legitimize only and exclusively those "measures of hardship" that are expressly "permitted by law," and not already those that are not expressly excluded or prohibited by it (as the Defense seems to argue).
Such a clarification is made necessary in light of the defense allegation that other countries legitimize the bandaging of arrested subjects and, even, the European Court of Human Rights itself has deemed such an operation to be fully legitimate, moreover, in a case of great international outcry.
The Defense, in fact, both in its argument and in its brief, cited, though without attaching it, the ruling issued by the ECtHR on March 12, 2003 in the case of Ùcalan v. Turkey, in which, indeed, the Court ruled out the violation of Article 3 of the Convention in relation to the transfer operations of the well-known Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ùcalan who, having been arrested in Kenya, was taken by plane to Turkey, remaining blindfolded for a long time during the journey.
Indeed, in the case at hand, even beyond the aforementioned considerations about the fact that such conduct in Italy remains forbidden or, at least, not permitted by law, in the judgment found on the Court's website but not produced by the Defense, it is noted that Ùcalan "had his eyes blindfolded every time the Turkish agents did not wear a balaclava. The blindfold was taken off every time the officers put on their balaclavas ... the blindfold was taken off once the plane entered the Turkish air zone."
Consequently, the Court, after pointing out that, "for an arrest or detention of a person in the context of judicial proceedings to be degrading within the meaning of Article 3, the humiliation or disheartenment with which they are accompanied must be at a particular level and distant in every case from the usual level of humiliation inherent in any arrestor detention (see, mutatis mutandis, Raninen v. Finlande judgment of December 16, 1997, Recueil 1997-VIII, p. 2821-2822, § 55)," as for the blindfold, he noted that "the members of the security forces had put it on him for the purpose of avoiding being recognized by the accused, they also thought they could prevent the appellant from attempting to escape or injuring himself or third parties," and noted that Ùcalan "was not interrogated by the members of the security forces while he had the blindfold on, whereby it ended up acceding to the Turkish government's approach that "the members of the security forces, by taking this precaution, did not intend to humiliate or hit the appellant, but had the mission of ensuring the smooth conduct of his transfer, which, it must be admitted, required a great deal of caution and precautions, given the appellant's personality and the reactions that his arrest had provoked."
In conclusion, the Court, had somehow legitimized that treatment imposed on Ùcalan only because, in the face of the objective aggravation of his detention conditions during the trip and in that space-time context, on the other hand, there were pressing security requirements aimed at preventing recognition by the man who was at the top of what was considered by the Turkish Authorities (rightly or wrongly) to be a dangerous criminal syndicate (the PKK), of the members of the police force who were bringing him back to Turkey and for the purpose, precisely because of his notoriety and personality, of more effectively inhibiting possible attempts to escape their control on board an aircraft or to cause them physical harm.
It is evident how - and again net of the aforementioned considerations on the non-full correspondence between the possible violation of Article 3 European Convention of Human rights and the case under Article 608 of the Criminal Code.
- the present case has significant differences with the one involving the PKK leader, in that in the case under consideration there were certainly no - nor did anyone allege them - reasons of security or anonymity of the operatives who had stopped the crime victim nor, even less, was it realistic to assume alleged aggressive conduct of the same (or of third party associates) to the detriment of the operatives inside that barracks and such as to impose, in addition to the handcuffs on his back, the blindfolding of the U.S. citizen.
The question must obviously be addressed, on the basis of the preceding considerations, in order to ascertain whether in the certainly unlawful conduct of M who had subjected Hjorth to measures of rigour (the blindfold) not provided for by law, can be found the justifying cause of the state of necessity (obviously, for the reasons mentioned above, that of self-defense is to be excluded, in nuce, since the handcuffed to the back Hjorth, whether agitated or not, could not constitute a danger, even hypothetical, to the safety of the defendant or his other colleagues present in the room).
In such an analysis it is obviously necessary to start from the reasons given by M to justify the adoption of that measure and it is good to immediately point out how, unlike what the Defense claims, the defendant did not always expound them in the same way and the various versions he gave do not always appear reconcilable with each other.
As mentioned above, at trial M explained his choice to blindfold OFFENDED PERSON by asserting that it was, in his opinion, necessary to calm him down since, already from the moment he had picked him up at the hotel, the latter was agitated and was also in danger of hurting himself: "my concern was that he might self-harm ... we were in a tight environment there, there were desks and whatnot," as well as he had the concern "not to be seen with witnesses to the incident" that the NCO knew was in those offices, finally adding that it was an instinctive gesture in that he had "come to cover his eyes to - mind you - disorient him."
Before proceeding further, it is appropriate to make a couple of considerations starting from the assumption that the crime for which he is being prosecuted is an instant offense (see Cass. Pen, Sec. 6", May 21, 2012 No. 30780) so that the alleged instinctiveness of the gesture made by M would be, according to the law, substantially irrelevant especially since the same was not followed by the immediate removal of the blindfold affixed to the stopped man's eyes, which, at all events, was maintained for at least half an hour (see below).
The Tribunal, in fact, fails to fully understand the relationship between the blindfolding of an individual in a context such as that which clearly emerged at trial and the need to tranquilize him, believing that, unlike what happens to birds of prey when they are deprived of visual stimuli, a human being who has just been attacked in that manner should, on the exact contrary, become much more agitated as he cannot even see whether someone is about to strike him and from which point the threat is coming (and for that matter, M himself also stated that he covered his eyes ... to disorient him - p. 52) and in any case not even being able to understand, by moving his head, whether he was in danger of hitting some object that was in his immediate vicinity.
Obviously, this judge is not an expert in the matter and cannot rule out that that however unusual action may have exerted on Hjorth the positive effects annexed by M but he cannot fail to note how the defendant in that service report of July 28, 2019 produced by the Defense and forwarded to Colonel DA had not made even a larvae mention of the need to blindfold the detained man in order to tranquilize him and prevent him from making self-injurious gestures.
In fact (see ali. I of the defense production at the hearing of November 11, 2022) M asserts, without dealing with previous assaults suffered by the detained man, but only with the "presence of multiple people (at least 15)" in the office "with obvious confusion and collective tension" and the fact that the door "allowing access to the corridor with further coming and going of subjects" was open, "considering the need to take the subject to an isolated and safe environment but considering the impossibility on the way to prevent contact with other subjects even of potential investigative interest," provided "to temporarily affix a cover over the eyes of the detained," a cover which, "after a few minutes, having cleared the room," he then proceeded to remove.
By that report expressly M informed his commanding officer that "the need for the visual cover of the arrested" had become necessary because he had been, while awaiting "isolated placement," placed in a room where there were so many people, that the other office was already occupied, that it was impossible to reach another room because of the crowded hallway, and that "it was therefore necessary to prevent any kind of potential prejudice to subsequent photographic and/or personal identifications and any potential gestural and/or visual communication with the subjects of investigative interest," but nothing reported in relation to the agitation of Hjorth and the need to apply the blindfold to calm him down.
M, as emerges from the defense production, was invited to appear by the Public Prosecutor, as a person under investigation, first for August 2, 2019 (invitation served the previous August 1) and then for the following August 9, but on both occasions he failed to appear, alleging, through his Defense Counsel, issues of terms and process and in each case informing the Prosecutor's Office that he had "expressed his wish not to render the interrogation."
His subsequent version of the facts was then rendered on February 20, 2020 in disciplinary proceedings (ali. 8 of the defense production of November 11, 2022), which ended with disciplinary suspension from employment for six months (ali. 9 of the aforementioned defense production), and on that occasion dealt with V's assault on Hjorth while he and D were preparing to lead him inside the office, reporting that as a result of that event, Hjorth had become nervous and began to break free, but it cannot be helped but noted that, up to that point M had not mentioned any particular previous agitation of the detained man as he would later do at trial and indeed stated that the latter's state of agitation, in his opinion, "was caused both by the presence of numerous people and by the attempt of four other military personnel in an obvious state of agitation (. . all employees of the Piazza Famese Carabinieri Station Command) also manifested by shouting."
For these reasons M - "in view of the agitation of the and the dangerousness of his movements with the handcuffs on his wrists" - decided to move the handcuffs behind the back of the detained man and make him sit on a chair, where the same "continued to agitate and make sudden movements," reason for which he decided to blindfold him and talk to him calmly to calm him down. Also on that occasion M reported that the blindfolding of Hjorth was also determined by the need to keep him from coming into contact with other persons of investigative interest whom he knew to be inside the offices, and in particular he mentioned the names of **. i, V, E and an Egyptian subject whose name he did not remember or know.
After about a minute from the blindfold M, according to the disciplinary statement, left the room because he had become aware of the online publication of two photos depicting the detainees in the room of Hotel Le Méridien, entrusting Hjorth to App. B and advising him not to let anyone approach them. M, after interjecting with Mar. I who was interrogating Pompeii, reentered his office and noticed V making a recording with his cell phone, so he interrupted that recording and, after leaving the room and speaking with Maj. A, accompanied V to the room of the 7- Section and returned to the office where he ordered that the blindfold be removed from Hjorth.
It was intended to report these last statements (substantially in line with what M would later say at trial and with those made by B) because from them it is easy to derive how Hjorth was blindfolded for a substantial amount of time taking into account all the activities carried out by M at that time juncture, a time that can be isolated in at least half an hour and not in that ten minutes indicated by the defendant, as, in any case, is derived from some objective data emerging from the consultancy of Eng. C.
In fact, in LR's phone is found a photo taken from the rear camera of a 1- Phone 8, depicting Gabriel Hjorth, alone, seated, handcuffed to his back, which appears to have been taken at 12:56:09 a.m.; furthermore, C.T, isolated four other photographs taken between 12:30 and, precisely, 12:56:09 (the files show, in the relevant properties as the time of creation the hours 10:56, 10:39, 10.32 and 10:30 but, as the consultant specified, in this case the reference is to the Greenwich time zone - GMT - so, taking into account that at the time solar time was already in force, the same should be moved two hours forward to have the exact Italian time) and while in the first one in chronological order (fig. 6 of p. 19) one can see PERSON OFFENDED on the ground, in the next one at 12:32 (fig. 5) one can see the offended person already seated although one cannot see his face which is covered by the bodies of other subjects and in the still later one at I 0:39 (fig. 4) one can clearly see Hjorth blindfolded.
Consequently, it is all too easy to affirm that the blindfolding of the detained person took place around 12:32 (defendant and witnesses claim that there was practically no solution of continuity between the moment when Gabriel Hjorth was made to sit down and the blindfolding of the same) and in any case by 12:39 and how the same remained in that condition for at least half an hour if one takes into account the 12:56 photo, taken when the room appears almost empty (no one can be seen), and the fact that, at that juncture, M must not have returned yet.
If, therefore, what the offended person asserts when he speaks of "half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour" appears to be true, on the other hand, it is nevertheless evident how that blindfold was not affixed for reasons of protecting the genuineness of the evidence (which could be relevant to the exemption of the performance of a duty) since in that time frame there were a variety of alternative possibilities to make sure that the detained person did not come into contact with people of investigative interest, and besides, already from the 10 o'clock photo: 39 we do not appreciate crowding in the room but note the presence of only one subject besides Hjorth.
In fact, if, as mentioned above, the justification ultimately put forward by M and concerning the very protection of Hjorth's physical safety appears, already considered in itself, unconvincing, in the same way it must be concluded with regard to the one, indeed already attached in the service report of July 28, 2019 and reiterated also at trial, aimed at preventing visual contact between today's offended person and other subjects.
In this regard-assuming and, in all likelihood, not conceding that the defendant, who, in fact, had remained on the sidelines of the investigations that had made it possible to identify E and H as the alleged perpetrators of the CARABINIERE murder (so much so that he had been summoned only to transport one of them to the barracks and had not even gone up to the hotel room where they were staying), actually knew that not only B and V, but also P and the Egyptian citizen were in Via In Selci, and, again, granted and, in all probability, always not granted, that investigative reasons could be hypothesized to prevent Hjorth from seeing the face of any of these (and obviously not vice versa since the blindfold had been affixed to the U.S. citizen)-it is just not understandable how, even among that multitude of people who were in the offices or in the corridor waiting for the detainees, the defendant could assume that there were, in addition to Carabiniere V, also "civilians" B, P and the Egyptian, who, at that moment, at most, must have been inside some other office where they were being questioned by his colleagues and it is too easy to argue, as to V, that already an eye contact and even physical contact between them and Hjorth had occurred, by his own admission, in the outside area so that that alleged caution about the carabiniere in question, the only person who could have been present in that office, was, at that point, entirely superfluous.
In any case, once again assuming, and not granted, that that was the motivation behind the bandaging of Hjorth, it would escape the reasons why - once the most troublemakers had been removed from the office after I's intervention (see p. 49 of the transcript of M's statements) and thus ascertained that those who had remained in the room had a minimum of qualification to do so - the bandage was not removed and that unnecessarily mortifying and burdensome condition for the detained person was maintained for a few dozen minutes.
It is still appropriate to reiterate that, in the present case, once it has been established-and the fact cannot be doubted-that the blindfolding of a detained person is not a measure of severity permitted by Italian law and that, in any case, no specific animus nocendi is required with regard to the detained person but only the awareness of adopting an abnormal restrictive measure, the only possibility of impunity for the public official who engaged in that conduct is to allege the existence of a cause for justification and, excluded for the aforementioned and all too clear reasons, that of the fulfillment of a duty that in any case would not "cover" the subsequent moments in which that measure of strictness was maintained - only that of the state of necessity to which the Defense has referred remains, but even the recurrence of such an exoneration must be excluded in the case at hand also because the same presupposes that the danger to the physical safety of a person, whether presumed or real, was not otherwise avoidable in any case .
In fact, it has already been mentioned how the purpose of protecting the safety of the detained person by means of the affixing of that blindfold - a fact that is already scarcely probable in itself and of which the Tribunal in any case fails to grasp the relative teleological nexus - was not at all attached in that first service report drawn up in the immediacy of the facts and how, even on the second occasion when M went over the affair again , that alleged state of agitation of the Hhjort, which in the trial was backdated to the moment of the taking over at the hotel, would have manifested itself only as a result of the unworthy aggression that the boy had suffered in the barracks by V and other military personnel belonging to the Piazza Farnese Station, reason why, in no case, there was that necessary "inevitability otherwise" placed as the basis of the exemption of which art. 54 c.p., since the result of protecting the physical safety of Hjorth could easily be obtained by removing his attackers, restoring order to that room which, moreover - and even before H was blindfolded - Marshal I and Lieutenant C had already done.
In fact, the video shot by V and depicting H still blindfolded and which would have been taken at a time when M, entrusted the detained to B, had left the room, gives the measure of exceedingly small presences in those offices (there are at most 5 or 6 people) and of the relative quiet in which it was made since no background noise is heard (a sign that the doors were closed as, with a little attention, can also be grasped from one of the last very quick frames of the video in the record that shows the lower part of the door facing the corridor and which is closed) and therefore it is very easy to note how M, at least upon his return, once the alleged danger had ceased, had a specific duty to arrange for that bandage to be removed.
However, the video unfortunately, as noted by the Plaintiff's Defense Counsel, presents a decidedly more disturbing detail since, as can easily be appreciated from minute 00:27 onwards, the reflection of a monitor placed in front of the operator returns a very clear image of the subject who is placed behind the blindfolded American citizen (and who, moreover, appears anything but agitated) holding the latter's head firmly with one hand and who, in all probability (cf. minutes 00:19 and 00:20), raises it back to him at the moment when Hjorth keeps it lowered while responding listlessly to V's questions.
It is therefore evident how that measure of rigour put in place by the present defendant, far from finding justification or exemption of any kind in reasons of service or in necessity, not otherwise avoidable, to elide the risk of physical harm to the same person on whom it had been imposed, rests on quite other motivations, motivations which, obviously, it is not necessary to isolate in order to ascertain the criminal responsibility of the defendant but which the Court considers it indispensable to try to identify in any case for the relevance they may assume, pursuant to Article 133 of the Criminal Code, in the sanctioning treatment.
Indeed, no perplexity can remain, in light of the statements made by the defense witnesses, about the fact that, in any case, M actually tried to protect the physical safety of the detained man who had been entrusted to his custody and in an environmental situation made particularly complicated by the, objectively wicked, choice, certainly not attributable to him, of letting an exaggerated number of subjects into those offices who had nothing to do with the investigations in progress or with specific service needs that required their presence in the barracks during those delicate hours.
Moreover, as far as it turned out at trial, today's defendant is a NCO of the Arma who is particularly esteemed and appreciated, and in all likelihood rightly so, by his superiors and all those who have had the opportunity to work with him so that, at least in the court's opinion, the gesture, certainly of impetus, of M to blindfold the present offended person can find only one identifiable justification in the need to prevent the detained person from memorizing the faces of those who might have attacked him at that juncture, and thus the conduct for which the proceedings are being prosecuted, far from being aimed at protecting H, had been put in place for the purpose of protecting some carabiniere from consequences prejudicial to him where he had subsequently been recognized by H as one of those who had beaten him or had gratuitously infested him.
Nor, indeed, can it be ruled out - without prejudice, however, to the c.d. avoidability otherwise of dangers for H determined, certainly not by his self-injurious gestures, but by the aggression manifested towards him by some people present in the barracks - that by blindfolding the offended person, M also wanted, in some way, to satisfy the thirst for revenge manifested by some of the military personnel present (the chats in the record give unequivocal proof of this), inflicting on the U.S. citizen a measure, certainly humiliating, but scarcely injurious and suitable to leave no traces, so as to calm the spirits of the most troublemakers and make them understand that, in any case, the alleged killer of their colleague and friend, was certainly not being "treated with kid gloves ... " by the Investigative Unit.
In the light of the latter considerations, although it may appear almost paradoxical, the Tribunal considers that M put in place that behavior - in any case criminally relevant and for which he cannot but be convicted - with the main, if not exclusive, purpose of protecting his colleagues, both by eliding, already ab origine, the possibility of subsequently reaching their identification (in one of the chats of the carabinieri involved in the investigation it is in fact stated that H "was blindfolded so as not to see" - see p. 25 of Eng. C's C.T.), as well as trying to deprive them of further opportunities to engage in other aggressive conduct towards the stopped man; precisely for these reasons, if the defendant, a well-respected military man who is obviously free of criminal prejudices, cannot fail to be granted the general extenuating circumstances, it is necessary to identify a penalty close to the edictal limits and identified in that referred to in the operative part, which is reached starting from a base of three months of imprisonment reduced by one third for the general extenuating circumstances.
Taking into account the absolute occasionality of the conduct and the above-mentioned probable reasons for it, the prognostic judgment referred to in Article 164 of the Criminal Code can be positively carried out with regard to the defendant and, therefore, it is possible to grant him, in addition to the benefit of non-mentioning, that of suspended sentence.
The conviction, however, follows the obligation to pay the court costs and those of the civil plaintiff's constitution and defense, which are to be liquidated on the basis of the average parameters, in € 3,933.00 of which € 513.00 for general expenses, plus VAT and CPA, as well as the obligation to pay damages to the civil plaintiff constituted, damages which, in equity and definitively, we consider to be quantified in € 5. 000.00 (five thousand) taking into account the in any case not excessive prejudice caused to the offended person and the fact that, obviously, the subsequent media dissemination of photos and videos reproducing the H blindfolded can certainly not be attributed to the defendant.
P.Q.M.
Having regard to Articles 533 and 535 of the Code of Criminal Procedure;
DECLARES
M guilty of the crime ascribed to him and, with general mitigating circumstances, sentences him to a term of two months' imprisonment as well as payment of court costs;
having regard to Articles 163 and 175 of the Criminal Code, orders the suspension of the sentence for the terms and under the conditions of the Law and the non-inclusion of the sentence in the certificate of criminal record sent on the request of private individuals not for electoral reasons;
having regard to articles 538 et seq. of the Code of Criminal Procedure, orders the defendant to pay compensation for the damages caused to the Civil Party that has been formed, which, on an equitable and final basis, it settles at € 5,000, as well as the reimbursement of the expenses incurred by the same Civil Party, settled at € 3,933.00 of which € 513.00 for general expenses, plus VAT and CPA;
indicates in ninety days the term for the filing of the reasoning. Rome, February 24, 2023