COSPITO proti Itálii

FIRST SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 12438/23
Alfredo COSPITO
against Italy

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 4 September 2025 as a Committee composed of:

Frédéric Krenc, President,
Raffaele Sabato,
Alain Chablais, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 12438/23) against the Italian Republic lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 15 March 2023 by an Italian national, Mr Alfredo Cospito, who was born in 1967 and is detained in Opera (Milan) (“the applicant”) and was represented by Ms A. Mascia and Mr F. Rossi Albertini Tiranni, lawyers practising in Verona and Rome;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The case concerns the application of the special prison regime provided by section 41 bis of the Prison Administration Act (Law no. 354 of 26 July 1975), under which the applicant is detained, and the compatibility of his health condition with continued imprisonment.

2. On 4 May 2022 the Minister of Justice suspended the application of the ordinary prison regime to the applicant, who was detained in the Sassari prison, and ordered the application, for a period of four years, of the special prison regime provided by section 41 bis of the Prison Administration Act (“the 41 bis special prison regime”). The restrictions imposed by the order consisted of limited visits by family members and no visits by non-family members; a prohibition on using the telephone; limits on receiving money and parcels from outside the prison; a prohibition on participating in the elections for prison representatives; and a maximum of two hours out of doors per day and in a group of no more than four persons. Additionally, incoming and outgoing correspondence was to be monitored, subject to prior judicial authorisation.

3. On 21 May 2022 the applicant lodged an appeal (reclamo) against the Minister’s order.

4. On 20 October 2022, while the appeal proceedings were ongoing, the applicant began a hunger strike complaining, amongst other things, that the 41 bis special prison regime was incompatible with his fundamental rights.

5. On 1 December 2022 the Rome court responsible for supervising the execution of sentences (tribunale di sorveglianza – “the sentence supervision court”) rejected the applicant’s appeal. The applicant lodged an appeal on point of law against this judgment before the Court of Cassation.

6. On 30 January 2023 the applicant was transferred to the Milan Opera prison.

7. Following deterioration of his health conditions, the applicant was admitted to the correctional wing of the San Paolo Hospital in Milan a first time between 11 and 27 February 2023 and a second time between 4 March and 3 May 2023.

8. On 29 March 2023 the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment of the sentence supervision court.

9. While the main proceedings were ongoing, on 14 December 2022 the prosecution requested the Sassari sentence supervision judge to assess whether there were grounds to suspend the applicant’s sentence in light of his health condition. On 27 January 2023, following an individualised assessment of the applicant’s condition and the medical care provided by the prison authorities, the judge rejected the request. However, he referred the case to the Sassari sentence supervision court for a final determination which, on 27 March 2023, upheld the judge’s decision. It appears that the proceedings are pending before the Court of Cassation.

10. On 27 March 2023, the Milan sentence supervision court also rejected a similar request for suspension of the sentence filed by the applicant. The court’s decision was based on a thorough assessment of the applicant’s health condition, documented by reports by court-appointed experts and by medical staff at the San Paolo Hospital as well as reports filed by experts appointed by the applicant. It considered that his physical issues were linked to the hunger strike voluntarily initiated by the applicant, and that the medical assistance provided by the prison and hospital authorities was adequate and appropriate. An appeal before the Court of Cassation appears to be pending.

11. On 9 April 2023 the applicant ended the hunger strike.

12. The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention of what he considered to be an arbitrary application of the 41 bis special prison regime, which amounted, in his view, to inhuman and degrading treatment. In particular, he alleged the lack of adequate reasoning underpinning the regime’s application and the severity and invasive nature of the restrictions entailed by it. He further complained, also under Article 3, that his health condition was incompatible with detention and that the domestic courts had failed to adequately assess it in his requests for suspension of his sentence, and that he feared being subjected to forced medical treatment.

13. The applicant also complained under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention that the restrictions imposed by the 41 bis special prison regime, in conjunction with section 4 bis of the Prison Administration Act limiting access to prison benefits, were incompatible with the rehabilitative purpose of the sentence. Under Article 6 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the request for review of the order extending the special prison regime fell exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Rome sentence supervision court, which he claimed lacked full jurisdiction. He argued that this placed him at a procedural disadvantage vis-à-vis the Minister of Justice, that he was denied access to the sources of information relied upon by the authorities in issuing the extension order, that no public hearing was held during the appeal proceedings, and that appeals against decisions of the sentence supervision court could be lodged with the Court of Cassation only on grounds of errors of law (violazione di legge). Additionally, he complained under Article 7 about the alleged unforeseeable and retrospective application of the 41 bis special prison regime; under Articles 8 and 13 about unlawful interference with his right to privacy; and, ultimately, under Articles 10 and 18, alleging that the true purpose behind the application of the 41 bis regime was to restrict his freedom of expression.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

1. Complaints under Article 3 of the Convention

14. The Court will examine the applicant’s complaints under Article 3 of the Convention as set out in paragraph 12 above together as they are overlapping (see Morabito v. Italy, no. 4953/22, § 70, 10 April 2025).

15. The main features of the 41 bis special prison regime have been outlined in Provenzano v. Italy (no. 55080/13, §§ 83-90, 25 October 2018) and the compatibility of a prisoner’s health condition with being kept in detention in Morabito (cited above, § 101, with further references).

16. In the instant case, the Court notes that the applicant has been in detention since 2012, and that the 41 bis special prison regime was applied to him for the first time on 4 May 2022 (see paragraph 2 above).

17. The Court has already had the opportunity to assess the 41 bis special prison regime in a large number of cases and has concluded that, in the circumstances of those cases, it did not violate Article 3, even when it had been imposed for lengthy periods of time (see, among others, Enea v. Italy [GC], no. 74912/01, §§ 63-67, ECHR 2009; Paolello v. Italy (dec.), no. 37648/02, §§ 26-29, 24 September 2015; and Argenti v. Italy, no. 56317/00, §§ 19-23, 10 November 2005). The Court has accepted that, generally speaking, the extended application of certain restrictions may place a prisoner in a situation that could amount to inhuman or degrading treatment (see Enea, cited above, § 64). However, it could not define a precise length of time beyond which such a situation attains the minimum threshold of severity required to fall within the scope of Article 3. The Court has consistently held that, when assessing whether or not the extended application of certain restrictions under the 41 bis special prison regime attains the minimum threshold of severity required to fall within the scope of Article 3, the length of time must be examined in the light of the circumstances of each case, which entails, inter alia, ascertaining whether the renewal or extension of the impugned restrictions was justified or not (see, amongst many other authorities Enea, cited above, § 64). Moreover, it has found that subjecting an individual to additional restrictions without providing sufficient and relevant reasons for the application or extension of such a regime may be perceived as arbitrary, thus undermining the detainee’s human dignity and entailing an infringement of Article 3 (see Provenzano, cited above, §§ 152‑53, and, mutatis mutandis, Csüllög v. Hungary, no. 30042/08, §§ 36- 37, 7 June 2011).

18. Lastly, in its assessment of whether or not the extended application of the 41 bis special prison regime meets the threshold required by Article 3, the Court has also considered the physical or psychological consequences allegedly caused by the prolonged application of the special regime and the existence of evidence thereof (see Mole v. Italy, no. 24421/03, §§ 18-19, 12 January 2010; Zara v. Italy, no. 24424/03, § 15, 20 January 2009; and De Pace v. Italy, no. 22728/03, §§ 34-35, 17 July 2008).

19. Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court notes at the outset that the applicant was not subjected to a reiterated, prolonged application of the 41 bis special prison regime over many years, as in the majority of cases that have come under its scrutiny (see, among others, Gallico v. Italy, no. 53723/00, § 20, 28 June 2005; Argenti, cited above, § 20). Rather, in the instant case, at the time of the introduction of the application the applicant had been detained under the 41 bis special prison regime for approximately ten months (see paragraphs 2 and 16 above).

20. As regards the reasons underpinning the application of the 41 bis special prison regime, the Court observes that the decision of the Minister of Justice to impose the restrictions at issue do not appear to be based on what can be described as “stereotyped” reasoning. Rather, the ministerial order provided a detailed, individualised account, based on evidence provided by different State bodies and agencies of, amongst other things, the applicant’s criminal history, his criminal convictions, his role within what were referred to as subversive associations, and in particular certain anarchist movements. The Minister also relied on evidence of the support network which the applicant had access to, as well as the ongoing presence and current state of activity of those movements in Italy and abroad. The ministerial order noted that some of these activities had been qualified by the domestic courts as terrorist acts and that they had involved dangerous attacks, including with explosives. It also investigated the link between the applicant and the anarchist movements in light of those movements’ specific features, their international dimension and the results of investigative activities carried out in different sets of criminal proceedings. It found, amongst other things, that the applicant, whose prolific communications from prison – including what the order described as writings advocating for armed struggle and inciting the use of violence with a view to supporting the anarchist cause – had contributed, in light of the evidence available to the authorities, to identifying targets and stimulating attacks against State institutions.

21. Furthermore, the Court notes that in the appeal proceedings against the ministerial order, the Rome sentence supervision court conducted a thorough assessment of the information provided by the relevant investigative authorities, as summarised in the order imposing the special regime. In rejecting the appeal, the court conducted a further assessment of the structure of the movements to which the applicant was associated, their objectives, the applicant’s role, his ability to maintain contact with them, and the applicability of the 41 bis special prison regime to the type of organisation at issue. Moreover, the Court notes that the Court of Cassation rejected the applicant’s appeal against the judgment of the sentence supervision court, finding that the latter court had provided adequate reasoning on the need to apply the 41 bis special prison regime and had correctly interpreted the relevant law based on the available evidence.

22. Lastly, the Court observes that the applicant did not submit to the Court any evidence which would lead it to conclude that the application of the restrictions entailed by the special prison regime was patently unjustified (see Enea, § 65; Gallico, § 22; Argenti, § 22, all cited above). Nor has he submitted any cogent element which would cast legitimate doubts on his ability to maintain contact with the associations at issue (compare and contrast Provenzano, cited above, § 151).

23. Turning to the applicant’s health conditions – and its compatibility with the Article 41 bis special prison regime and with detention in general –, from the evidence before it, the Court observes that the deterioration of the applicant’s health was connected to the hunger strike he began on 20 October 2022 (see paragraphs 4 and 6-7 above) and which came to an end on 9 April 2023. In this respect, the Court reiterates that, with regard to the specific case of detainees who voluntarily put their lives at risk, facts prompted by acts of pressure on the authorities cannot lead to a violation of the Convention, provided that those authorities have duly examined and managed the situation. The Court observed that this was the case in particular where a detainee on hunger strike clearly refuses any intervention, even though his state of health would threaten his life (see Yakovlyev v. Ukraine, no. 42010/18, § 44, 8 December 2022, and further case-law references therein, and Rappaz v. Switzerland (dec.), no. 73175/10, §§ 49-51, 26 March 2013). From the documentation available to the Court, it appears that the applicant was informed about the effects of the hunger strike as well as the type of treatment which would be provided with his consent and that he refused to interrupt the strike despite the deterioration of his health condition. Since the beginning of the hunger strike, he was monitored daily by prison doctors and external doctors from the National Health Service. He also had the opportunity to be examined by a doctor of his own choosing. It appears from the available material that the domestic authorities took the necessary steps to alleviate any risk for the applicant’s health by ensuring medical assistance consistent with his will not to interrupt the hunger strike (compare Normantowicz v. Poland, no. 65196/16, §§ 79-81, 17 March 2022). When required by his medical condition, he was admitted twice to the San Paolo Hospital in Milan (see paragraph 7 above), which is a civilian hospital with a correctional wing (see Provenzano, cited above, § 137).

24. The Court further notes that the domestic courts, when assessing the applicant’s request for suspension of his prison sentence for medical reasons, had access to reports by court-appointed experts and by medical staff at the San Paolo Hospital as well as reports filed by experts appointed by the applicant (see paragraph 10 above). Thus, they based their rejection on multiple medical reports and their decisions are well-reasoned.

25. In view of all the above considerations, the Court concludes that the applicant was not subjected to treatment that attained the minimum level of severity required by Article 3 either as concerns the imposition of the Article 41 bis special prison regime or when refusing to suspend his prison sentence due to his health condition. It follows that these complaints must be rejected as manifestly ill-founded in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

2. Remaining complaints

26. The applicant also raised other complaints under various Convention provisions (see paragraph 13 above).

27. The Court considers that, in the light of all the material in its possession and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, these complaints either do not meet the admissibility criteria set out in Articles 34 and 35 of the Convention or do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention or the Protocols thereto.

28. It follows that these complaints must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 25 September 2025.

Liv Tigerstedt Frédéric Krenc
Deputy Registrar President