(ANSA) Rome, October 31 - An appeal court Friday overturned
the conviction of four doctors and a hospital staff member
accused of killing Stefano Cucchi, a draughtsman who died in
Rome's Pertini hospital in 2009.
A lower court last year also had acquitted three warders and
three nurses in the case and the acquittal also was upheld by
the Rome appeal court while the manslaughter conviction against
the five found guilty last year was quashed.
Cucchi died after being arrested on a drug charge and
according to the lower court his death was caused by a "severe
shortage of food and liquids".
An autopsy shortly after Cucchi's death found he was
severely dehydrated and also had two broken vertebrae and
internal organ damage. The appeal court decision however
absolved the consultant in charge of the prison ward of the
Pertini hospital, Aldo Fierro, and the doctors Stefania Corbi,
Flaminia Bruno, Luigi De Marchis Preite, Silvia Di Carlo and
Rosita Caponetti.
Also cleared were nurses Giuseppe Flauto, Elvira Martelli
and Domenico Pepe as well as prison guards Nicola Minichini,
Corrado Santantonio and Antonio Domenici.
It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would
lodge a further appeal meaning the case would be heard a third
time in the Court of Cassation, Italy's Supreme Court.
"Together with my colleagues I have been accused of
barbarity, of having clubbed and beaten Stefano Cucchi,"
Minichini told the court earlier, "we were compared to ruthless
nazis. I would not wish anyone to go through what we have
undergone. But I, we are innocent".
Cucchi's relatives said the sentence was "absurd" and they
would appeal to the supreme Court of Cassation.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
