1972

05 May, Pisa
Franco Serantini, 21 years old, student

Franco Serantini, anarchist activist, would be 70 years old today: but almost fifty years ago, on 7 May 1972, he died on a stretcher in the infirmary in the Don Bosco prison in Pisa, after being beaten by the policemen who had stopped him during a demonstration, and after spending two days in prison without receiving the necessary medical care.
He was born in Cagliari on 16 July 1951, son of NN, as it was written in documents until 1975: nomen nescio, that is, unknown father. It was a civil registrar who gave him that name, Franco Serantini, which belonged to a Romagna writer of novels and short stories. After two years in an orphanage he was entrusted to a Sicilian married couple. In 1955 the foster mother died, and the provincial administration of Cagliari ordered that the child be entrusted to the Institute of the Good Shepherd, in the Giorgino district. In 1968, the nuns of the institute wrote to the Juvenile Court: that boy was unmanageable, he didn’t study, he rebelled against their authority, he didn’t obey. The Court ruled: «Since the young person’s personality appears seriously disturbed due to an absolute lack of affection and long institutionalization, the subject’s personality must be well supported with an affectionately understanding and supportive treatment». So they decided to send him to reform school. To make up for the long period spent in an institution, according to the court, Serantini had to be locked up. They sent him to Pisa, to the Pietro Thouar re-education institute, under a regime of semi-freedom: he had to sleep and eat in the institute. Meals at 1.30pm and 7.30pm and return by 9.30pm. Franco Serantini finished middle school in Pisa and then began attending the State Professional Institute for Commerce which awarded diplomas for accountants, company secretaries, tourist office workers, executive and concept clerks. He became a close friend of a classmate, Sauro Ceccanti, who was the brother of Soriano, a boy left paraplegic after being wounded by a gunshot on 31 December 1968 while, with thousands of other students, he was protesting at the Bussola di Marina of Pietrasanta, one of the most famous clubs in Versilia in the sixties.
Serantini moved closer to left-wing movements. It was the end of the Sixties, full era of protest. He became interested in anarchist groups, made friends with the intellectual Luciano della Mea and, through him, with many others from his political environment. He began reading, studying anarchist thinkers, with enthusiasm. One evening a friend, Paolo Podio Guidugli, told him to be careful, as a “predestined victim: you are a Valpreda”, referring to the anarchist unjustly involved in the trial of the Piazza Fontana massacre.
Political elections were scheduled for 7 May 1972 in Italy. For the closing of the electoral campaign of the Italian Social Movement in Pisa, in Largo Ciro Menotti, Beppe Niccolai’s rally was scheduled. The left-wing movements, especially Lotta continua and the anarchist movement, decided to oppose and try to prevent the rally. Niccolai spoke in the square in front of around 200 militants, surrounded and protected by the police forces. The left-wing militants, according to the reconstruction of the Police Headquarters, stood on the Lungarno Mediceo and on the Ponte di Mezzo, starting to shout and throw objects at the police who were in Piazza Garibaldi. The charges and clashes began.
A girl, Valeria, met Serantini on the Ponte di Mezzo. She told him to come away, he replied that she would stay, “they won’t catch me”, and she walked over the bridge, into Lungarno Gambacorti. Valeria was the last person to see Serantini before he was taken by the police. As reported in the 1975 book by Corrado Stajano, Il sovversivo – Vita e morte dell’anarchico Serantini -, a person looking out of the window at that moment, Moreno Papini, said he had seen some vans and about fifteen policemen arriving at his house. feet. He testified and told what happened:
«Then I leaned over the windowsill and saw that they were grabbing someone. Right near the sidewalk, exactly under my window, about fifteen police officers jumped on him and started beating him with incredible fury. They had formed a circle above him so that he could no longer be seen, but from the gestures of the police officers it was clear that they had to hit him with both their hands and feet, and with the butts of their rifles. Suddenly some policemen got out of the vans in front and intervened on the group of those who were beating them, saying phrases like this: “Enough, kill him!”. A bit of a scuffle occurred between the two groups of policemen. Then someone who looked like a soldier entered the vehicle and with another policeman they pulled him up. Only then could I see him in face, because his head was lolling on his back. She had black, puffy, curly hair and was dark-skinned. They then dragged him towards the trucks while the officer gave him a few more slaps to revive him”
Serantini was taken to the Mameli barracks. Here other arrested demonstrators saw him: «Around ten o’clock», Giovanni Rondinelli said in his testimony, reported by Stajano, «Franco arrived: he sat down on a bench alone and with his head lowered on the wooden surface. Around 11 they moved us into a large room and Franco immediately sat down on the floor. It seemed to me that he was very ill and his face was white.” Serantini was taken to Don Bosco prison. He was very ill and yet no one seemed to notice. Giovanni Mandoli, another witness, said:
«I had been in preventive custody since April 16. Around 8.30-9 on Saturday morning I went down to the ground floor, in the left arm for those entering the prison and, through the peephole, I saw Franco Serantini who was holding his head leaning on an arm resting on a metal shelf, fixed in the wall under the window. His head was turned towards this wall and I could observe him from the side. I intended to give him some cigarettes, but I gave it up, convinced that he was asleep. At the end of the hour of fresh air, I think around 11, I went back to Franco’s cell and through the spyhole I saw him again in the same position as before. Convinced that he was still sleeping, I walked away towards my cell. Subsequently, again on Saturday, I saw Franco again as he left the cell supported by two guards. He was dragging his legs and had his head resting on his chest.”
The next day, at 12.30, Franco Serantini was questioned by magistrate Giovanni Sellaroli. He was visibly ill, he couldn’t hold his head up, he responded by holding his head on the table. Sellaroli claimed to have ordered a medical examination for the young man, but he was only taken to the infirmary at 4.30 pm, four hours after being interrogated and 15 hours after entering prison. The prison doctor found bruises and bruises. However, he did not have him hospitalized or order x-rays: he only recommended “permanent ice pack”.
Franco Serantini was taken back to his cell, a nurse came by to change his bag of ice and told his cellmate to hold it on his head, because he couldn’t do it alone. At night he complained a lot, at 8.30 in the morning he was foaming at the mouth and, as his cellmate said, “he looked like a dead man”. In the operating room he was given injections of coramine, lobeline and an intra-cardiac injection of adrenaline. At 9.45am on May 7 he was declared dead. The certificate spoke generically of cerebral hemorrhage.
In October 1972 the medical-legal report on the causes of his death was filed. It was established that he had arrived “due to cardio-circulatory insufficiency caused by a very serious multi-contusive condition affecting the cephalic region, the trunk, the limbs”. And again: “the injuries found on the corpse are all due to the action of blunt objects.”
The doctor at the Don Bosco prison in Pisa, Alberto Mammoli, received a notice of proceedings for manslaughter. Amerigo Albini and Vincenzo Lupo, police captain and marshal, and the guard Mario Colantoni, were investigated «for having stated falsely and withheld what they knew to ensure impunity for the agents responsible for the murder of Franco Serantini».
In May 1975 the judge declared «that there was no need to proceed with the crime of manslaughter against Serantini Franco because the perpetrators were unknown». Lupo and Mammoli were acquitted, Albini and Colantoni sentenced to six months and ten days on probation.
In March 1977 Alberto Mammoli was wounded in the legs by gunshots; the attack was claimed by the armed group Azione Rivoluzionaria.