FLORENCE. “It can happen to anyone to go through a bad period or have a bad day, as happened to my brother Riky twelve years ago (it was the night between March 2 and 3, editor’s note). But when you encounter the State, the State must protect the citizen in difficulty, it must not kill them. That’s the point.” Andrea Magherini answers the phone from Bastia, the point in Corsica closest to Italy. Far from his Florence, but not too far to prevent him from often returning to Tuscany “to be with my family.” In France, where he works as a physiotherapist, the past came knocking on his door Sunday afternoon. It’s impossible, looking at the images of Abderrahim Fakir’s death in Bologna, not to think about what happened to Riccardo, immobilized by three carabinieri in the San Frediano neighborhood and dead after having shouted “Help” until he ran out of breath.
Listen, were you able to watch the video?
“Yes, I saw it. They sent me the link Sunday evening. How can you not think of Riky watching it? Especially because of the exaggerated force of these policemen – in my brother’s case they were carabinieri, but it changes little – who persist, stay on top of him, hands on his neck and no one around does anything, not even the paramedics. I wonder what they were doing. The chilling thing is the indifference towards someone who screams for help, and instead of intervening, they continue to press until he screams no more. They even tie his feet when he’s already dead. Did you see the expression of one of the policemen when that man dies?”
Which officer are you referring to?
“The bigger one. He gets up and makes sure to put his glasses back on, fix his hair, and clean his hands. Where is the humanity? Watching those images, I relived what happened to Riky and felt terrible. When you are in the hands of the State, you must be safe, you must be helped. On this too, the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights is very clear and speaks of a lack of training of the Italian police forces. Also in the case of Bologna there is proof: in the video you see a third person blocking the man on the ground. He doesn’t have a uniform, I think he’s a passerby. But is it possible? Shouldn’t a second patrol have been called?”
12 years have passed and nothing seems to have changed. Is that possible?
“Yes, also because the European Court’s ruling was not given the echo it should have had. Yet the judges were clear: you don’t behave as those carabinieri behaved with my brother. You do it differently. If you’re on your stomach, you breathe badly, even if you don’t have anyone on top of you. Now, imagine breathing in a moment of agitation with a knee pressing on your back and hands on your neck. It’s the knee that makes you suffocate. It happened like that to Aldrovandi, to Riccardo, or in the United States, in Floyd’s case. You can exert that pressure on the neck and chest for a few seconds, then you must be able to handcuff the person and then turn them over. If, as happened in Bologna, you can’t handcuff him with two people, the solution is not to turn him over when he’s dead.”
Of your brother’s tragedy, what aspect hurt you the most?
“Many. Think that the first investigations into my brother’s death were carried out by the carabinieri who had intervened. Riky was even reported posthumously for a phone theft. But among all the bad things, the most terrible is to diminish the dignity of the deceased person. They start saying he’s a good-for-nothing: Cucchi was a drug addict, the other a criminal. It’s a protocol to blame the dead. And it’s this system that makes you not believe in the country. Then sometimes someone gets indignant, but it doesn’t last long, two days pass, a week, and everything goes back to how it was before. If you want, I’ll tell you a secret.”
Tell us.
“Our maternal grandfather was a carabiniere. So Riky and I grew up trusting uniforms. And yet look how it ended.”
Your brother Riccardo, for many, is the boy with teardrop glasses and a cigarette in his hand who appears in photos in newspapers. But who was “Maghero”?
“Riky was a guy almost 40 years old who had played soccer when he was young. He was a well-groomed person who had many friends, spoke four languages, was liked by women, and loved to party. A man of a thousand profiles whom everyone would have wanted as a brother. For two years he had been the father of Brando, who is now 14, and to whom he could have given a lot of beautiful moments. We could all have been happier, that’s why it’s so hard.”
Have you ever thought about what it would have been like if that evening had gone differently?
“It should have gone differently. Because Riccardo knew how to be well, surrounded by many beautiful things. That was a difficult period for him, which can happen to anyone. It could have been an opportunity to find the right path after the storms. Instead, he was not allowed to.”
In these years, has anyone apologized to you for what happened? Also given the European Court’s ruling?
“Never. No apology from a representative of the State or the carabinieri.”
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Does your family still hope?
“Sometimes I think how nice it would be if the general, commander of the carabinieri, invited my nephew and my father to tell them just three words: ‘We are close to you.’ I don’t think this gesture is forbidden. After all, the carabinieri are at the service of citizens. And what happened to my brother can happen to anyone. Riky was asking for help that evening, even the people who first called for help say so. In fact, the soldiers who arrive in San Frediano find him on his knees with his arms open because he wants to hug them: he felt safe.”
Twelve years later and given how it ended (the carabinieri were acquitted by the Court of Cassation), was your and your family’s battle worth fighting?
“Certainly. It was hard, I don’t deny it. Both in terms of energy and money. But in the end, we got that paper for Brando which says that his dad didn’t want to leave him.”
What would you say to Fakir’s family?
“That they have all our closeness. I know how painful it is, it will be difficult to get justice. If I can give them advice, I would suggest they go directly to the European Court of Human Rights without going through Italy, because in these cases you are against the State and the State always wins. Because it knows how to win.”
You know something about that.
“I’d say so. The Cassation ruling is a magic trick that made us understand many things.”
At the moment, has the Bologna Public Prosecutor’s Office registered the suspects with what has been dubbed the “criminal shield”?
“I haven’t seen it. But it changes little, it’s not like they can erase what happened. Sooner or later they will have to answer for what they did. Sooner or later they have to go through that, you can’t pretend nothing happened.”
Unlike Ilaria Cucchi who got involved politically, in 2019 you said no to running for mayor of Florence for the left. Do you have any regrets, perhaps for not having tried to change things from within?
“In 2019 I wasn’t ready, I had made plans, I live abroad, I have my job and I’m doing well. I also left Italy to find serenity, often returning to Florence to see my family. Even outside of politics, for example with this interview, I promote and support the right to life. If those in politics, like Ilaria Cucchi whom I respect, manage to change things, all the better, I am always here pushing for this to happen. I do it for Riky, for his son. And so that no one goes through what my brother went through.”
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