Eight paramilitary police risk trial over Cucchi case cover-up

Stefano Cucchi allegedly died due to police brutality

ROME - Eight Carabinieri paramilitary police including two senior officers, may face being sent to trial over the suspected cover-up of the police brutality death of 32-year-old Roman surveyor Stefano Cucchi in 2009.

 Prosecutors have concluded an enquiry into the case in which the eight are under investigation, including former head of the Rome Group General Alessandro Casarsa, and former head of the Rome’s investigative centre Colonel Lorenzo Sabatino.

 The suspects are accused of crimes including making false statements, failure to report a crime, aiding and abetting and calumny.

 Cucchi allegedly died in 2009 due to injuries caused by a beating by police. One of five police officers on trial in relation to Cucchi's death accused two others of the beating.

 According to investigators, Casara and Sabatino organised the creation of a chain of fake and altered documents relating to Cucchi's state of health. Prosecutors have stated that the suspects “allegedly falsified a service note, dated Oct. 26, 2009, relating to Cucchi's health conditions.”

 The note was made “with the aggravating circumstance of wanting to procure the impunity of the police of the Appia station responsible for having caused the injuries that in the following days determined Cucci’s death,” they added.

 For several years, as a result of the alleged cover-up, the case looked set to end without anyone being brought to justice for Cucchi's death.

 According to Rome’s chief prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone, the death was caused by excessive ‘slapping, punching and kicking,” which resulted in “a disastrous fall with impact to the ground in the sacral region.”

if