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Italy/US: Activist repatriated

01 May 1999

Silvia Baraldini, a 50-year old Italian woman who has served 16 years of a 43-year sentence in Lexington and Marianna high security US prisons, is being transferred to an Italian jail to serve the rest of her sentence. Baraldini's case attracted international attention as a result of the US government's treatment of the Black Panther Party supporter. In Lexington prison she was part of an experimental "small group isolation" unit which was later closed after a court decision that it violated constitutional rights. Subsequently, Baraldini contracted uterine cancer in prison where she was given late and inadequate medical treatment.

Baraldini was convicted in 1984 of attempted robbery and received a 40-year prison sentence. She was also found guilty for her alleged participation in aiding Black Panther leader Assata Shakur's escape from jail and a further three years were added to her sentence as a result of her refusal to testify before a grand jury investigating the Puerto Rican independence movement. Under the terms of the Strasbourg Convention, signed by both Italy and the US, there are provisions for prisoners to be transferred to their home countries to complete their sentences. Baraldini was denied this right, despite the one million letters calling for her release which were sent by Italian citizens in 1990, and two visits by US religious leaders to the Justice Department, in 1992 and 1994, petitioning for her transfer. A unanimous vote in favour of her repatriation by the European Parliament led to a resolution, passed on 17 November 1994.

European Parliament, "Resolution on the detention of Ms Silvia Baraldini" 17.11.94; PARC and the Prison Issues Desk "Fact sheet on the case of Silvia Baraldini" (website: link); Guardian 12.6.99.<