Home » World » Italy compensates a Bulgarian woman with 240,000 euros, who was unjustly imprisoned

Italy compensates a Bulgarian woman with 240,000 euros, who was unjustly imprisoned



In Italy, for every unfairly spent day behind bars, 236 euros are paid. PHOTO: PIXABEY


She spent 3 years behind bars on charges of exploiting prostitutes, but was acquitted

Pyears after she was acquitted of a crime she did not commit, a 30-year-old Bulgarian woman will be compensated with nearly 240,000 euros. This was ruled by the Court of Cassation in Rome at the end of an odyssey that lasted several years.

The Matino daily published in Naples reported that five years ago a Bulgarian citizen with the conditional name Elena was accused of serious crimes. Along with four other people – three Bulgarians and an Albanian citizen, she was arrested in the town of Mondragone.

Their detention was due to a judicial investigation in which they were accused of participating in a criminal group, enslaving other people, exploiting prostitution, kidnapping people. The five were arrested in 2013 as part of an investigation into a network of prostitutes imported from Eastern Europe to Italy. Women were forced into prostitution in the southern areas of Campania and Calabria.

Three years later, the trial ended with two convictions and three acquittals in a court in the southern city of Santa Maria Capua Vetere. Two of the accused were sentenced to 12 and 8 years in prison, while three other people, including Elena, were fully acquitted.

In the meantime, however, Elena spent three years in prison. Therefore, after justifying herself through a lawyer, she asked to be compensated by the Italian state for her years behind bars.

The Court of Appeal in Naples ruled in 2019 that she deserved to be compensated with 240 thousand euros for “unfair detention in prison.” The prosecution is challenging this decision. In February, however, the Constitutional Court in Rome ruled that the Bulgarian woman had the right to compensation. Today, the 30-year-old woman lives in a municipality near Caserta, Campania region.

How and who in Italy has

right to compensation

for unfairly spent time behind bars? And how is prison time measured in money?

The Italian state recognizes the right to compensation for people unjustly held behind bars pending sentencing. Very often this can happen due to a magistrate’s mistake or for other reasons. However, being in prison for a magistrate’s mistake is quite different from unfair detention. It relates to judicial measures unfairly applied to someone who is subsequently acquitted.

There is a second case and it concerns a man who, although he was later convicted, should not have been in prison during that time because there were no preconditions for his detention.

In the case of the Bulgarian woman, this is the first type of unfair detention in prison. The Italian Penal Code also stipulates the amount of compensation for this type of unfair detention. The amount of compensation may not exceed EUR 516,456. Although the law specifies a ceiling on compensation, it does not say exactly how much falls in individual cases. Therefore, the rules of arithmetic are usually applied in justice. This leads to the amount that is due for each unfairly spent day behind bars, or 236 euros. They are obtained by dividing EUR 516,456 by 2,190 days (six years is the maximum period of pre-trial detention).

If, for example, a person has been placed under house arrest for 2 years and then acquitted, the compensation for his unjust imprisonment is € 172,148. However, the Italian judiciary accepts this arithmetic calculation of compensation only as something conditional. The judge who must adjudicate it may consider that for some reason, such as severe psychological damage, the compensation may be increased.

– .

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.