Italy: Interior Ministry accused in case of police torture and defenestration of Romani victim
06 November 2024
The Ministry of the Interior (the Viminale) was named as a responsible party at a preliminary hearing of the ‘Omerovic’ case, where a 37-year-old disabled Romani man ‘fell’ nine metres from a bedroom window during a police raid in 2022.
Three officers have been accused of false testimony and torture following the unauthorised raid on the family home in Primavalle on 25 July 2022. In the course of this police intervention, Hasib Omerovic, who has been deaf since birth, sustained serious injuries and subsequently spent eight months in hospital. On 25 October, the preliminary hearing judge accepted a request from the civil parties, and the Omeric family will seek damages from the ministry. The hearing was adjourned until 21 February 2025.
Facts of the case
On 12 April 2024, the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office closed the investigation into three police officers, including assistant chief of police Andrea Pellegrini, who was on duty in the Primavalle district at the time of the events, and is accused of the crime of torture.
According to the indictment, Pellegrini “after entering the house, immediately and for no apparent reason hit Omerovic with two slaps in the area between the neck and the face.” He accused Omerovic of harassing a young girl and taking photos of her. Pellegrini then “grabbed a kitchen knife and brandished it towards Omerovic”, kicked in the door to the victim’s bedroom, “ordered Omerovic to come into his bedroom and forced him to sit on a chair; after having recovered a cable from a fan, he used it to tie the man's wrists” and “brandished, once again, the kitchen knife he had previously used at the man, at the same time threatening him, shouting the following phrase at him: ‘If you do that again, I'll stick it up your arse’.”
The three officers, in addition to the crime of torture, are also accused of aggravated forgery. According to the prosecution, the officers allegedly fabricated the reasons for the intervention in their report, and omitted to give a full account of Pellegrini’s conduct inside the apartment.
On 2 February 2024, Hasib Omerovic was heard by magistrates, where his lawyers reported that he provided a detailed reconstruction of events which confirmed what was reported in the complaint filed by his parents the day after the incident. Omerovic stated that "he was attacked and beaten by the officers with kicks, punches and blunt objects; he recognized an officer as the protagonist of the brutal attack; he stated that his wrists were tied with an electric cable and, at some points, that he was hooded. Finally, he confirmed that he was grabbed and then thrown from the window of the apartment on Via Gerolamo Aleandro".
After the 25 October preliminary hearing, Associazione 21 luglio and Deputy Riccardo Magi of the party +Europa, which have supported the Omerovic family’s quest for justice from the outset expressed satisfaction: “Today, the preliminary hearing judge of Rome has accepted the request of the civil parties to cite the Ministry of the Interior as civilly responsible in the proceedings in which three officers are accused. The trial documents so far reveal the chilling dynamics of that day … We recall that unfortunately until our public denunciation there had been no complaints from the inside but only blatantly false reconstructions of the facts.”
Veritá per Hasib
These developments occurred just days after the latest ECRI monitoring report on Italy criticised the lack of accountability in cases of racist abuse and violence committed by law enforcement, highlighted the extent of routine ethnic profiling, and how such practices erode trust in the police, generating “a feeling of humiliation and injustice among affected groups and resulting in stigmatisation and alienation.”
Justice needs to be seen to be done in the case of Hasib Omerovic, as MP Riccardo Magi stated, “We are asking for the truth for Hasib, hoping for a quick trial that sheds light on this very serious and disturbing affair. The truth is also necessary to rebuild citizens’ trust in the police, as should be natural in an advanced democracy.”
