The death of Federico Aldrovandi (18 years)
cecile - 15.01.2006 12:24
In the night of September 24 in Ferrara, Italy, Federico Aldrovandi, a boy of 18 years, dies in the hands of the police. They left him for five hours on the asphalt, initially hiding the truth to the mother who searches for her son. The police version talks of a call from residents in the zone, alarmed by the strange attitude of the boy, who when arrested collapsed. If it is true is not known. The police deny responsibility for his death, sustaining that he hurt himself, and died for overdose of drugs the boy had taken.
From Indymedia Italy:
The toxicology exams reveal that overdose cannot have been the reason for the death of Federico Aldrovandi. The details as described by the medical referees are still not 'officialised' four months after this incident, they talk about numerous signs of violence over his whole body, a wound ruptured on his head, violet colored stripes on his pulses of the handcuffs, and his scrotum smashed.
The mother told that she got Federico’s clothes literally soaked with blood. The news remains unknown for months. Only in these days the silence is broken by a blog of the family who asks for light over the event.
(translation by Cecile - former correspondent in Italy, for Dutch and Italian media).
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The mother's story on blog:  http://federicoaldrovandi.blog.kataweb.it/
Ferrara 2/1/06
I'm writing the story of what has happened to Federico, my child. I won't write all about him, it is impossible to tell a life, even if only 18 years and his anniversary recently passed.
He died September 25, on Christmas day it were three months...
I've always thought that survive a son would be an unsustainable pain. Now I know that in reality it is impossible. I don't say this with a purpose; I now know it is just like this. A part of me has no breath anymore, has no light, no future... Since his breath, light and future were taken away from him.
Saturday September 24 was a serene, happy day...
After school the lunch together, chats, laughs. It was still summer, it was warm. He took his dog-friend for a walk. He didn't do that too often, but that day he went, with his walkman and some music in his ears. Everything that day had a special aura.
To think about that now, it is like as if he had wanted to greet all of us. He had smiles for all, the pleasure was he himself.
He met with his girlfriend, and did his small work bringing around pizza's.
The program of the night foresaw a concert in Bologna.
Before he left he passed by home, to change his shoes, broken by playing soccer...
It was the last time I saw him alive.
He greeted all, including his brother who already slept, asking me why Stefano didn't react on his greetings.
Also one of his girlfriends has confirmed to me that that night he was serene, that he had greeted her smiling, with the usual punch on the shoulder and the appointment the day after...
That day after never existed.
At Link, the concert had been canceled. However the night was spent in that place.
This was said by his companions who were with them, I can't call them friends, and the analyses have confirmed this. One of these boys has sold him some substance, a pill or something similar.
They call it the party of Saturday night. It is mistaken, yes.
But it is not what provokes death...
Federico knew it well. He had participated in a school project of research and information, promoted by the province. I know that his knowledge was profounder with researches on the ASL sites; he knew the substances and the effects. He was in his way a hygienist. He took great care of his body, of what he ate. He was sportive. A splendid boy full of health.
And of projects: he thought of music, at his future, his studies served to construct and create a future.
For the immediate there were the simple things: the drivers’ license in a few days, karate, a musical band to organize with his friends, and the all-day life, in a search to stay well.
After the night [in Bologna] the group returned to Ferrara, to the meeting point where most of them had left cars and motorcycles. Federico was by foot. He left the house in the car with Michy, who had not gone to Bologna.
It had become five in the morning. The boys told that they offered him a passage by car, but Federico didn't feel like going home immediately. He would have turned home on foot. He was close to home...
From his cell-phone it is visible hat he had called various other friends. Especially his best friends, more times, each one. Maybe to ask them if they were still awake and out... it seems that no one answered him. The boys I know told me that they had already turned off their cell-phones and were sleeping.
And then, I don't know what exactly has happened. At that hour I woke up, maybe not completely, asking myself if Federico had already returned home. I felt so tired that I didn't manage to move. Then I heard some rumor in his room, and I was certain that he was there.
I woke up again when it was nearly eight in the morning.
Then I started to call his cell-phone, and send messages. Nothing...
It wasn't possible that he didn't respond. If he was late, he always let me know. He said it was stressing, but he didn't want to have me thinking. I gripped myself to the idea that he had probably lost his cell-phone...
Then also his father started to call him. On Federico's cell-phone his father is memorized with his name, Lino.
A voice answered.
Forcing he asked who was on the phone, and has asked to describe Federico.
After this he qualified himself as a police-agent, and to our questions he answered that they had found the cell-phone on a bank near the race-track (horses) and that they were investigating.
And he hung up.
Immediately I searched at the police station, and I have also searched for a friend of his who worked there.
Nothing.
The central line people gave answers like: we're in change-turns now... I have not been informed..., once we have some news we'll call you...
Nothing for another three hours!!!! Passed in fear and with telephone calls to hospitals, to his friends, and again, repeatedly to the police.
In the meantime Stefano went on his bike to search his brother. I thank heaven that he didn't go to the right place.
The police came to inform us only towards 11 hours. After they had brought him away.
His body has remained on the street from 6 to eleven in the morning.
And they haven't called me. He was my son. No one has the right to keep a mother away from her son!
And they told me they had done it for me... Because it would be better if I didn't see.
At that moment I believed them.
The police told that a resident of the zone had called because he had heard shouting.
They told also that he had hurt himself, banging his head against the walls.
This has revealed to be false. Denied according to the exams.
Federico was destroyed by the punches.
Much time later I got his clothes back. He wore a t-shirt, sweater with hood, and his jeans.
They're completely soaked with blood.
They told he didn't want them to get him. That he had fought and even jumped on top of the police car. The medical doctors examined that he had his scrotum smashed to pieces, a
ruptured wound on his head, and numerous signs of violent punches all over the body.
I've been allowed only to see the ones on his face, from his left temple to the eye, and down to the cheekbone, and the black signs of the handcuffs on his pulses.
I've seen him in the coffin. His corpse didn't seem at all trained and symmetrical. My child was perfect, and beautiful. They've destroyed him. ..
And the police told he was drugged. That he had hurt himself, and only by himself. That all of this had happened because he was a poor junky and we unlucky parents...
They want to kill him twice. The analyses have confirmed that what he had taken was irrelevant.
Certainly not the reason to cause his death, or aggressive attitudes. If, then it would be the contrary.
That what I think is that Federico has been terrorized in that moment. That the world fell on his head. The shame of being stopped by the police, the drivers-license taken away because he had taken a pill. And he had forgotten his ID card.
That morning, near around, it was told that an Albanese person had died. Nobody seemed worried about it...
He has tried to escape. To not be taken.
Seen how he has been reduced it is understood how he has been stopped. When they had him immobilized, handcuffed with his belly downwards, he didn't have the force anymore to breathe.
Who knows when they got aware of this?
The ambulance has been called when there was nothing anymore that could be done. And not even then they took him to the hospital to try an extreme intervention. They left him there on the street. Five hours. And then they came to inform us.
Why?
If it is true that he became unconscious by himself, then why the ambulance was not called immediately?
Why get him to the ground in such a violent and cruel manner? He was alone. There was no one.
He was unarmed. There was no threat for nobody.
Why wait so long before informing the family?
Clear. To not let us see...
If we would have seen him like that what would have happened? What kind of echo would it have had?
In the newspaper of the day after an article declared he died for a pain-torment... taken from the morning information of the police.
The day after another article in another local newspaper 'Federico destroyed'. Immediate counter declarations of the chief of police: "He didn't die because of the punches"... which was the first acknowledgement of what had happened.
Until today the findings of the medical exams have still not been made official. Only a few details that I mentioned here have come out.
What doesn't give me peace is the thought of the terror and the pain that Federico has lived in his last living minutes. He never hurt anyone. He believed in friendship which he gave by hands full. He was a simple boy, like so many. Like so many boys of his age he believed himself grown-up, but inside he still wasn't. He had all the possibilities of a life ahead, and a great will to live it...
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This day, Sunday January 15 there's a sit-in on a central square in Ferrara.
Amnesty International London has confirmed to follow the case.
And in the meantime in this weeks the trials against the police violence in Genova 2001 during the G-8 are taking place...
*Arrivederci Democracy*
 Website: http://federicoaldrovandi.blog.kataweb.it/
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