Moussa Balde in Turin Detention Centre: Judges Speak of 'Dehumanisation'
Turin's court has sentenced the former director of a repatriation centre to one year in prison over the death of Moussa Balde, who died by suicide in 2021. According to the judges, the young man underwent a process of dehumanisation.
Conviction of Detention Centre Director: Balde Victim of "Dehumanisation"
Turin's tribunal has imposed a one-year prison sentence on the then director of the Centre for Repatriation Stay, A.S., deeming her "seriously negligent" in assessing Moussa Balde's psychological condition. ANSA Cronaca reports this, citing the reasons for the judgment in the case of the young man originally from Guinea, who died by suicide on 23 May 2021.
In their reasoning, the judges describe what Balde experienced inside the facility as a process of "animalisation" and "dehumanisation". The young man had been transferred to the centre after suffering a racially motivated assault in Ventimiglia, where he had been without proper documentation.
The sentence devotes an entire chapter to the "human story" of Moussa. To reconstruct the reasons for the suicide, the magistrates cite lengthy passages from reports by civil party experts. According to such reports, once in the centre Balde "began to lose the markers of his own socio-cultural identity": his origin from Guinea was not considered relevant, and no operator had asked him about family members in Italy or abroad, nor whether he wished to contact anyone.
The experts describe a progressive slide towards "de-parentalisation" and "de-culturisation", with a consequent loss of identity markers. No doctor, psychologist or legal operator had examined his personal situation in depth during his administrative detention.
Source: ANSA Cronaca