Why Abderrahim Fakir’s death reignited Italy’s police accountability debate

Bologna, Italy – Six minutes and 56 seconds. That is the length of the video capturing the final moments of Abderrahim Fakir, a 42-year-old Moroccan-born man who had lived in Bologna, northern Italy, for more than three decades.Filmed shortly after 12:30pm local time (10:30 GMT) on Sunday from the balcony of a nearby apartment block, the footage shows two Italian police officers and a civilian restraining Fakir on the ground. He repeatedly screams for help. Four Italian Red Cross volunteers, who arrived with an ambulance, stand nearby.For more than four minutes, Fakir cries out. Then he falls silent. His ankles are secured with a black plastic zip tie. Only after the restraint ends do paramedics realise Fakir has lost consciousness.“I ask you to listen very carefully to that video,” says Fabio Anselmo, the lawyer representing Fakir’s family, during a July 21 news conference in the Italian Senate hosted by Senator Ilaria Cucchi.Cucchi’s brother, Stefano, died in police custody in 2009. Anselmo represented the family during the legal battle that led to the conviction of several officers, making the case a symbol of Italy’s wider struggle over police accountability.“When the officers ...