Moroccan man's death in police custody reignites Italy's police accountability crisis

On a Sunday afternoon in Bologna, a video camera captured six minutes and fifty-six seconds that would reshape a national conversation about power and restraint. The footage, shot from a nearby balcony just after half past noon, shows two police officers and a civilian holding a man named Abderrahim Fakir face-down on the ground. Fakir, forty-two years old and a resident of Bologna for more than thirty years, screams repeatedly for help. Four Red Cross volunteers stand nearby with an ambulance. For over four minutes he cries out. Then silence. His ankles are bound with a black plastic zip tie. The paramedics do not move to help him until after he has already lost consciousness.

Fakir's death arrived as Italy was already wrestling with its own history of custody deaths. In 2009, a young man named Stefano Cucchi died in police custody—a case that took years of legal battle to prosecute, that convicted several officers, and that became the country's most visible symbol of police accountability failures. Sixteen years later, the European Court of Human Rights had just condemned Italy in January 2026 for another death, that of Riccardo Magherini, who died in Florence in 2014 after being restrained face-down. The court found that Italy had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to demonstrate that such a position was "absolutely necessary." Fakir's death seemed to confirm a pattern the courts had already named.

The lawyer representing Fakir's family, Fabio Anselmo, stood before the Italian Senate on July 21 and asked senators to listen carefully to the video. He had spent nearly thirty years fighting cases like this one. "When the officers stand up, Fakir may still be alive," he said. "Yet no one attempts to help him. No one removes the restraints." The police account was straightforward: officers had responded to reports of a person behaving violently, emergency services had been called immediately, and Fakir died after restraint procedures carried out in the presence of medical personnel. Prosecutors ordered a post-mortem examination. The local health authority opened an investigation. The video spread across social media within hours.

By evening, thousands had gathered in Piazza Maggiore—trade unionists, students, civil rights organizations—called there by Bologna's mayor in a show of solidarity with Fakir's family. His sister held up a photograph of her brother as she spoke through tears to reporters. "My brother wasn't an animal," she said. "He was a father, a worker, a good man. Why did they do this to him? I want everyone to see his face. I want people to know who he was. We don't want revenge. We want justice." What had begun as a peaceful demonstration shifted when part of the crowd marched toward the Prefecture and police headquarters. Clashes erupted. Demonstrators threw bottles and fireworks, smashed windows and cash machines, set two cars alight. Police responded with batons, water cannons, and tear gas. A man named Jacopo, tackled from behind and thrown to the ground, said officers beat him with batons and fists even as he raised his hands and told them he was complying. A freelance journalist for L'Espresso was struck repeatedly with a baton while retreating, shouting "I'm a journalist!" as the blows continued. Police reported sixty-four officers injured and extensive damage to the historic center.

Fakir's final months had been marked by a different kind of pressure. Barbara Spinelli, who had represented him on immigration matters for years, told Al Jazeera that he had started a small removals and logistics business, but clients failed to pay for completed work. He laid off employees and fell into debt. More than the financial strain, though, Spinelli said Fakir had grown increasingly anxious about Italy's hardening migration debate—discussions of deportations, the implementation of the European Union's new Pact on Migration and Asylum, adopted in 2024 and due for full implementation in 2026. He feared expulsion from Italy, despite having no legal grounds for such action. "I kept reassuring him there were no legal grounds for that to happen," Spinelli said. "But that fear never left him." It remains unclear whether those fears had any connection to the encounter with police on July 19.

The investigation into Fakir's death will be the first conducted under a new procedure called Article 45-bis, introduced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government through a Security Decree that came into force in February 2026. Under this procedure, police officers are not immediately entered into the register of criminal suspects when alleged offences occur in the course of their duties. Opposition parties, legal scholars, and human rights organizations say the change could make it harder to hold officers to account. Anselmo called it "a legal monstrosity," designed not to strengthen the rule of law but "to satisfy part of public opinion." Meloni condemned the violence at the protests, calling it unacceptable, and said Fakir's death "must be fully established, without prejudice and without discounts for anyone." Opposition parties demanded that Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi report to parliament on the circumstances and release any body-camera footage. The investigation will now unfold under rules that critics say were written to protect the very institution being investigated.