People just keep dying behind bars in Italy, it seems. The sudden death of a 29-year-old detained in the Pordenone penitentiary is still unexplained.

Stefano Borriello was a young man detained in the prison of Pordenone, in the north of Italy, on charges of robbery. "He tried to steal an old man's wallet, and deeply regretted it," explains the sister.

Then, one day, he suddenly died — just like that. As of today, no explanation for Stefano's death has been established and Antigone's ombudsman, lawyer Simona Filippi — who is representing Stefano's family — raises concerns over the fact that no one is even really looking into it.

What happened?

It was the evening of August 7 when Stefano was brought to the hospital. He died shortly after being admitted. The cause of death, according to the medical report, was cardiac arrest.

Except that is no real explanation, is it? Stefano's mother presses for answers, she keeps demanding to know what exactly happened to her son: how can a 29-year-old man who had never suffered from any physical aliments drop dead for no apparent reason?

In the two months he had been detained in Pordenone's penitentiary, Stefano had been perfectly fine. He had even decided to deal with his drug problem and was scheduled to meet a psychologist in order to discuss his transfer to a rehab community.

During the last week of his life, though, things appeared to be somewhat different: his absence from the weekly group meeting with the chaplain on Monday was unusual - "they said he was feeling unwell," reported the chaplain.

Then on that Thursday, a priest with whom Stefano had developed a close relationship went to see him but was not able to. "They said he could not come because his back was bad and denied me access to his cell," he said.

What was going on with Stefano? And what events have determined his death?

5 months of silence

Five days after Stefano's death, the deputy public prosecutor opened criminal proceedings against unknown suspects charged with manslaughter. And yet, five months have passed and nothing has happened.

In fact, the expert witnesses nominated by the public prosecutor to ascertain the cause of Stefano's death and verify the existence of internal or external injuries still have not produced their findings.

Furthermore, the public prosecutor will not give access to all acts and documents related to the investigation (from medical reports to transcripts of the interviews with Stefano fellow detainees) - which are kept classified - until the expert witnesses will have produced their report.

Another Stefano case

"Basically, we are stuck in August," laments Filippi, "still probing Stefano's death." Filippi denounced back in November the unforgivable slowness of the investigation and the serious issue not having a medical expert's report on the cause of Stefano's death; she recently came back to the point to highlight how these grave delays would most certainly cause serious complications for carrying out a criminal trial.

"This looks just like another Stefano Cucchi case," the priest remarked at one point. But how long until Cucchi's family gets justice, how long until Borriello's family gets some answers?