Despite several cases against the Italian state for torture by its police, there has been no real progress to introduce a crime against torture into national law.

History repeats itself

It was only a year ago: the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in its judgment on the Cestaro case, strongly condemned Italy for the violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights - prohibiting torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatments - during the 2001 Genoa G8 summit.

The violence took place during the police raid on the Diaz school. The abuse by police went unpunished, despite being acknowledged even by Italy's Supreme Court: the trial that followed ended without any punishment for the guilty officers because of the incompleteness of Italian law, under which torture is not recognized as a crime.

Another Italian torture case, concerning severe abuses perpetrated on prisoners at the hand of the penitentiary police, has landed before the ECtHR. The events took place a decade ago in Asti's penitentiary, but, despite clear evidence, the perpetrators were not punished.

The Italian judges clearly recognized that what had happened amounted to torture as defined by the UN Convention against Torture (which Italy signed in 1989), but ruled that the offenders could not be punished because no law existed criminalizing their acts.

Money won't solve anything

When the Asti case was first taken into consideration by the ECtHR, the Italian government proposed an amicable end to the case by offering to pay the two victims compensation of 45,000 euros each. In that proposal, however, the government did not commit to a legal reform to finally introduce the crime of torture, and the court therefore rejected the deal.

The case has indeed been declared admissible and set to go forward at the Strasbourg court, which clearly expects the Italian state to take its obligation to criminalize torture more seriously.

In other words, money won't make the problem go away. In fact, there is only one way out of this shameful situation, and that is the criminalization of torture. Italy has to face its constitutional and international responsibilities with regard to prohibiting and repressing torture; until it does, history will keep repeating itself.