The leaders of a community center located in the former hemp mill of the southern city of Caserta have asked to reopen a Reception and Integration System (SAI) program after judicial authorities dropped a seven-year-long fraud case against them.

Last week, a preliminary investigations judge (GIP) shelved a case against 17 people following an investigation carried out by the State Attorney's Office in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, near Caserta, into an alleged six-million-euro fraud involving government funds for migrants hosted in Caserta as part of the national SPRAR (now called SAI) system for hosting asylum seekers.

The people probed included the heads of the social center Ex Canapificio, officials from the town council, and other individuals active in local associations.

SAI, the hosting system for refugees and asylum seekers which organizes language and job training courses, among others, is aimed at promoting the inclusion of individuals involved in the program and the development of the area hosting them, in terms of labor and social integration, Ex Canapificio activists stressed.

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How the local hosting system was dismantled

Prosecutors in Santa Maria Capua Vetere investigated an alleged fraud involving funds provided by the interior ministry to the Ex Canapificio community center to manage the SAI program (formerly called SPRAR) through the Casa Rut and Caritas facilities.

However, a Preliminary Investigations Judge (GIP) on October 23 ruled to drop the case, as requested by the State Attorney's Office.

"The municipality of Caserta today is no longer part of the SAI network for adults and minors. Much of what we built has been destroyed", said Mimma D'Amico, one of the leaders of the community center, following the sentence.

SAI, which was efficiently managed in Caserta by Ex Canapificio members, reported issues between 2018 and 2019 after the investigation caused a delay in funding provided by the interior ministry to manage the program.

Moreover, in February 2019, the building used by the social center since 1999 to manage its activities was seized because of alleged structural problems.

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Seizure and termination

The Ex Canapificio group had previously been in charge of the building as part of an agreement with the Campania region.

After the seizure, the center lost the management of the SAI program and the Municipality of Caserta gave it instead to a group of companies for the 2021-2022 period.

However, the interior ministry subsequently censored the new management of the local SAI program at the end of 2022 due to critical issues involving the homes where migrants were hosted and because the program's beneficiaries were not paid the 2.50 euros they were required to receive on a daily basis.

In 2023, the SAI program was suspended for six months in order to give the municipal administration time to publish a new call for tender.

However, when no bid was issued, the interior ministry in February 2024 revoked funding to the municipality of Caserta, ending an experience that had given a "new life" to many migrants in the city, activists said.

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The story of Sylla Mamadou who worked as a tailor for a top fashion brand

One of those people who had benefited from his time working with the SAI was Sylla Mamadou, a 35-year-old Senegalese man, was hosted by SAI in 2018, when it was managed by the social center Ex Canapificio and became a tailor for an important fashion house.

However, his story ended on September 29, in the prison of Santa Maria Capua Vetere where he was taken by police because he had allegedly attacked an acquaintance.

The State Attorney's Office in the Campania city has opened an investigation into his death on manslaughter charges involving three doctors. Two of the physicians probed work at the prison where the man died and a third is employed by the 118 emergency service, who reportedly attended to Mamadou after an initial intervention at the hospital.

Fabio Basile, a member of the Ex-Canapificio center, thanked prosecutors in Santa Maria Capua Vetere for "reading documents and listening to us" after the case was shelved.

The group has also organized a large demonstration in Caserta after Mamadou's death to demand the truth into how he died. According to reports in Italian newspapers, including Il Fatto Quotidiano, Mamadou was potentially given several different drugs to calm him down, after he was arrested in a state of "extreme agitation." The morning after the medical interventions, he was found dead in his cell. An autoposy was carried out at the beginning of October, but the results have not yet been reported.

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