Accepted the defense's request, the Romanian mother is released from prison and Don Colmegna interrupts his fast
07-02-2013
There are also stories that end well: Anna is free. The young Romanian tried and sentenced without her knowledge to six months in prison was released yesterday, after 28 days spent in a cell between Monza and Como, by decision of the Milanese judge Carlo Giovanni Cotta: who suspended the execution of the sentence while don Virginio Colmegna was able to happily suspend, for his part, the fast that began last Monday when the case exploded. "It was painful - she said as soon as she was released from prison - above all the distance from my three daughters, who fortunately were always followed up even in my absence and did not miss a single day of school". And in the afternoon she was able to embrace them again at home.
The young mother released from prison
The story of Anna, a naturally fictitious name, had traveled on two different tracks in the last six years. One was the one known to her, namely her life: «Until 2006 - and now that she can talk about her, she herself remembers it - I lived begging on the subway. I was 21 years old, I had arrived in Italy with my father from Romania when I was 12». One day they stop her and ask for her documents. They release her after two hours. "The only time it happened to me," says Anna now with a smile. And little by little, in fact, her life changes: Don Colmegna's volunteers host her at the Casa della Carità , they give her a residence, she finds a regular job, then another better one and another one, she earns a rented apartment outside Milan, the daughters are growing up well, "in short - he summarizes - happiness".
On the other track, however, different things happened in that same period. From that old check of 2006 a judicial file was born which becomes a trial, which in 2010 becomes a sentence: six months for the accusation of "begging with a minor". It's a pity that Anna doesn't know anything about it: her domicile is elected with a defender assigned to her ex officio and every judicial act against her ends there, while she is declared a defaulter. "Until last January 9 - she still says incredulously - the carabinieri arrived at my house to tell me that I had to follow them to prison".
Fortunately, in her "new life" she is no longer alone as she used to be. A friend offers to keep her children and entrusts Anna to the lawyer Fabrizio Busignani, who immediately writes a request to the Court of Milan. She fully accepted by Judge Cotta, according to whom the notifications to the public defender are all regular but by themselves are not enough to "prove effective knowledge of the procedure" on the part of the defendant. "The execution of the sentence must therefore be suspended", is his conclusion: and noting that the public prosecution finally agreed on the point, he ordered "immediate release" without any further hearing. Now Anna, through her lawyer, will be able to regularly appeal against the sentence of first instance: in the "conviction - argues the lawyer - that the extremes exist for a total annulment".
Don Virginio was the first to embrace Anna on leaving the Como prison. "It's a great result - he commented immediately afterwards - which, however, shows how much more effort must be made to defend the rights of the weak and how much prison itself does not solve problems". He then specified that the appeal of the "Prison, rights and dignity" campaign continues "for all the Annas who have no word, against prison overcrowding, for the dignity and rights of all prisoners". And at this point, after four days, he ran to eat a sandwich.
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