The Chamber of Deputies definitively approved the bill introducing the crime of torture into the Italian legal system. There were 198 yeses, 35 nos, 104 abstentions. After the Stefano Cucchi case and the dramatic violence at the G8 in Genoa, Italy sets a fixed point.
“Anyone with violence or serious threats, or by acting with cruelty – states the new law – causes acute physical suffering or verifiable psychic trauma to a person deprived of their personal freedom or entrusted to their custody, authority, supervision, control, care or assistance , or who is in a condition of impaired defence, is punished with the penalty of imprisonment from four to ten years if the fact is committed through multiple conducts or if it involves inhuman and degrading treatment for the dignity of the person".
If a public official, policeman or public service officer commits the crime, the thought goes up from 5 to 12 years.
If there is a serious personal penalty, the penalties are increased by one third and if the injuries are very serious, they are increased by one half.
