An Italian mafia boss in solitary confinement won a legal fight to be able to listen to music in his cell.
Domenico Strisciuglio, 48, was sentenced to more than 20 years under Italy’s prison regime for murder and other mafia-related crimes. The rules, known as article 41-bis of the Penitentiary Administration Law, allow authorities to suspend certain penitentiary regulations, with the aim of completely isolating prisoners from their criminal associates.
After prison officials denied Strisciuglio’s request to buy a CD player, his lawyer went to court to allow him to expand his entertainment options in addition to watching TV in his cell.
On Thursday, judges in Sassari, the city in Sardinia where Strisciuglio has been in prison since 1999, agreed that listening to music is part of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of man.
Allowing him to have a CD player is in accordance with “his primary rights to engage in cultural activity”, which cannot be limited by any form of detention – including article 41-bis – the judges said in a decision cited by La Repubblica .
According to the magistrates, “the denial of this ordinary habit would result in a useless restriction of the rights of detainees”.
They also mentioned that regular Strisciuglio TV channels have access to not offer programs “capable of satisfying those interested in listening to music”.
Strisciuglio, who was part of a Mafia family in Bari, in southeastern Italy, won another case in 2019, when judges said he could watch TV after midnight.
Italy toughened prison conditions for mobsters and terrorists following bloody feuds in the 1980s and 1990s, which culminated in the murder of two leading Sicilian anti-mafia magistrates, Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, in 1992. Article 41-bis prohibited use of telephones, any association or correspondence with other prisoners, or meetings with third parties.
In October 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), based in Strasbourg, decided that Italy’s harsh prison systems for mafia bosses violated their human rights, citing life sentences that subjected prisoners to inhuman and degrading.
The ECHR urged Italy to revise its laws that mandate life sentences for very serious crimes and rule out sentence reductions, unless prisoners become informants.
The decision sparked protests among investigators, who say it does not take into account the context and history of the Mafia in Italy. According to Italian ministers, prosecutors and police chiefs, the decision of the ECHR may hinder the fight against organized crime across the continent.