Far-right ex-mayor of Rome emerges as unlikely prison campaigner

ROME, July 9 - Far-right, fresh out of jail, and teamed up with a man who wants criminals to "rot" behind bars: Italy's Gianni Alemanno is an unlikely champion of prisoners' rights, as he seeks to balance a tough stance on law and order with concern for human rights.

The 68-year-old has a solid right-wing political profile, starting in the youth wing of the post-fascist MSI party, serving under late Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as minister of agriculture, and as mayor of Rome from 2008 to 2013.

Alemanno was released on June 24 from Rome's overcrowded, run-down Rebibbia prison — one of Italy's biggest — 18 months after being jailed to serve a conviction for influence-peddling and abuse of office. He had denied the charges.

His experience — which he chronicled on social media — has cast a fresh spotlight on Italy's neglected prisons, among the most overcrowded in Europe, with an occupancy rate of nearly 140%.

"Only those who have spent time inside, or have relatives inside, understand the issue with prisons. Others do not understand it, they don't see it at all," Alemanno told Reuters in an interview.

He recalled a previous stint in Rebibbia - 10 months in 1982 for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the Soviet embassy during a far-right demonstration - which landed him in exactly the same cell where he ended up on December 31, 2024.

"From that cell, I watched Italy win the football World Cup in 1982," he mused.

ALLIED TO ARMY GENERAL

With his regained freedom, Alemanno joined forces with Roberto Vannacci, a former army general and anti-woke campaigner whose new far-right party is steadily gaining in opinion polls - and whose views on prisons are far from libertarian.

Meeting Alemanno on the evening of his release, Vannacci made his hawkish views clear, invoking the Biblical story about brothers Abel and Cain, in which the latter kills his younger sibling.

"Between Abel and Cain, I'm with Abel, and Cain should rot in prison," Vannacci told reporters. "For serious crimes, people definitely deserve a rigorous, serious, and prolonged sentence."

In jail, Alemanno made a name for himself by documenting alleged abuses and inefficiencies of the prison system with a Facebook diary he co-authored with a fellow inmate serving time for complicity in murder.

Their posts will soon be turned into a book, he said.

Alemanno denounced squalid living conditions, staff shortages among the judiciary, stifling bureaucracy, petty rules, and lack of educational or training opportunities for inmates who want to turn over a new leaf.

He said the system encourages criminals to remain criminals.

"Those who want to misbehave have a wide-open path and can do whatever they please; those trying to find a different way, on the other hand, face a multitude of difficulties," he added.

LITTLE GOVERNMENT ACTION

Last July Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government pledged to expand prison capacity by up to 15,000 places and facilitate the transfer of inmates with addiction problems to treatment centres to ease overcrowding.

Since then, no new prison places have been created, and the draft law on the transfer of inmates, still under discussion, risks lapsing unless it is approved before the current parliamentary term ends in 2027.

With opinion polls showing the ruling coalition neck-and-neck with the centre-left opposition, and under pressure from Vannacci on law-and-order issues, it is doubtful whether Meloni will want to invest political capital on prison reform.

However, Alemanno remained hopeful about the chances of some progress, even without the help of his new friend Vannacci. "It is a bipartisan battle, which must bring together left and right," he said. REUTERS