Jailed Italian anarchist leader Alfredo Cospito, whose health is deteriorating amid a 100-day hunger strike against his tough mafia-style prison treatment, was moved Monday to a Milan jail where health facilities are better than the Sardinian one he has been in for the last few years, his lawyer said.
The lawyer, Flavio Rossi Albertini, said Cospito, whose plight has spurred attacks on Italian diplomatic offices at home and abroad and is the 55-year-old Informal Anarchists Federation (FAI) leader, had been moved from Sassari Prison to Opera Prison in the Lombardy capital.
Cospito will be moved into an intensive care unit at Opera, Rossi Albertini said.
"Cospito will be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Milan prison facility (SAI) in Opera in view of his state of health," said Rossi Albertini.
Prisoners suffering from serious pathologies qualify for the SAI. On Sunday, Cospito's doctor Angelica Milia claimed that the detainee was at "risk of fibrillation", in view of his weight loss, and urged his transfer.
Cospito has lost over 40kg in his hunger strike against the 41 bis jail regime that is normally reserved for mafia bosses.
He is the first Italian anarchist to be held under 41 bis and his supporters have said if he dies the State will have blood on its hands.
Cospito, who has lately taken to a wheelchair, slipped and fell in the shower and broke his nose last week.
A 30-day deadline for the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, to respond to the request by Cospito's defence counsel to revoke the four-year hard prison sentence imposed on him expires on 12 February, Rossi Albertini also said Monday.
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