Delmastro visits Ucciardone in Palermo “The Government is making a big commitment to prisons”

"It is an important visit, we shared with the men and women of the penitentiary police and the trade unions the government's effort, with striking numbers, 10,250 financed hirings of penitentiary police officers in two and a half years of government. It is a cyclopean figure never seen before to recover the frightening staff shortages inherited from those who before me failed their mission". Thus the Undersecretary of Justice, Andrea Delmastro delle Vedove, on the sidelines of an inspection visit to the "Ucciardone" prison in Palermo.

"We shared the police force resources that we have deployed and the interventions, over 255 million, on prison construction, with great agreement from the trade unions. Then we also talked about problems more related to Ucciardone for which we will have rapid interventions within this month". The undersecretary then spoke about the specific case of Sicily: "The Court of Auditors focused on the previous decade and therefore that merciless photograph and that sensational call for responsibility from politics concerns those who preceded me".

As for cases of arrests of prison officers, "I feel like saying that there are always bad apples everywhere and that we need to have antibodies. We are working very hard on the anti-drones, on security, on anti-drones. We have purchased anti-drones to be supplied to all penitentiary institutions, after which we have the capacity to have antibodies also for those rare cases where sometimes some man or woman of the prison police does not behave in the most correct and mirror-like manner".

Delmastro also dwelt on the award permits for 200 bosses, after yesterday's cry of alarm from the president of the National Anti-Mafia Commission: "I share Chiara Colosimo's cry of pain addressed to those in charge, that is, to those who allow the award permits, which is certainly not the Department of Penitentiary Administration. If certainly not the government, not the Department of Penitentiary Administration, but others grant award permits, at least irregular ones, we are absolutely against it".

“Yesterday I took part in the demonstration at Quarto Savona 15 with Tina Montinaro to remember Falcone and Borsellino and the many guardian angels of the escort, there was a climate of splendid harmony there which is what we rightly invoke in the anti-mafia because it is stupid, childish and counterproductive to divide”. On the subject of wiretaps “I believe that the protest is absolutely unfounded, the perimeter of wiretaps remains the same and the use of this instrument has not been restricted in the slightest. If anything, we have intervened on the short circuit between courts, prosecutors and newspapers, the mass media use of wiretaps – Delmastro underlined -. We will never deprive the judiciary of a prodigious instrument in the fight against common and especially organised crime such as wiretaps. Therefore I find it a specious controversy that above all did not deserve to be expressed on 23 May, because on 23 May this nation should find unity”. On the doubts expressed by some members of the judiciary on the reform: "On the day of the anti-mafia someone criticizes a reform that had been indicated by Giovanni Falcone. We are on Giovanni Falcone's side".

“As a citizen of Palermo, I always feel great pain when the anti-mafia movement splits.” So said Carolina Varchi, group leader of Fratelli d’Italia in the Justice Commission of the Chamber, on the sidelines of an inspection visit to the Ucciardone prison in Palermo. "Over the years - Varchi added - I have been the driving force behind this movement, especially with the commemorations of July 19 and regardless of the political affiliation of each of us we have always believed that those squares, that of May 23 and that of July 19 should be shared. Sharing comes from respect. I agree with what Professor Falcone said, that is, that anti-mafia and remembrance are not tied to a stopwatch (the reference is to the fact that yesterday's minute of silence at the Falcone tree occurred ten minutes before 5:58 p.m., ed.). There was probably some organizational mix-up, no one will ever prevent anyone from protesting, just as I am sure that no member of that procession would have taken advantage of the minute of silence to whistle or make other types of protests. Therefore, I believe it is best to shelve this controversy and from next year all return together in the square, because just as the mafia strikes as one man, the State, the institutions, the associations, the movements must stay united and strike the mafia as one man."

“This prison is a historic structure that has several critical issues that have been addressed by Undersecretary Delmastro by verifying the state of the premises, both by talking to the main operators of the penitentiary police forces, who are the first guarantors of the safety and rights of prisoners when they can work in suitable conditions. The Undersecretary has promised his commitment both in terms of infrastructure and general terms”. This is what Senator Raoul Russo of Fratelli d'Italia, member of the National Anti-Mafia Commission, said. “Specifically, this structure requires major interventions – Russo added -. The ninth section will be the subject of significant interventions in the coming months. We are in a prison in the city centre that deserves special attention from the Department”.

-Photo by the Brothers of Italy press office-