Malik I had no papers and needed money. With no other alternative, she began working at the outdoor until 14 hours each dayalso in days of torrential rain, cold and wind strong, and without the appropriate clothing. She charged a pittance and I had no right to food, water, or a bathroom in which to relieve yourself. Babukar, also originally from Africahe recounted that they made him hold, together with another colleague, metallic materials for which 4 or 5 workers were needed, also fulfilling hard days for which they gave him 500 euros in two months. Augustin said that he also worked on holidays, sometimes at night and with hardly any breaks. He also saw that one day a classmate got hurt and they did not call an ambulance. “She went home and I never saw her again,” she said.
The protagonists of these chilling stories (whose names have been changed to protect their identity) are hundreds of foreign workers, the vast majority from Senegal. They became targets of the company Tecnova SRL that operated in areas adjacent to brindisi and Leccein the Italian region of Apulia (south), in the sector of the photovoltaic energyas corroborated by an investigation of THE NEWSPAPER through sources close to the case and its documents. The Court of Lecce ruled this April jail terms of up to 18 years of prison against seven people linked to the company, in a historic judgment by slave labor and extortion during which they were heard 483 complainants, of the more than 1,000 employees of the company. Migrants who dared to face their abusers in court.
the damned are four spanish (two of them, as managers), two colombians (one resident in Valencia) and a moroccan. The crimes for which they were prosecuted include association to commit crimes to reduce slavery and aggravated extortion. The sentence of conviction in the first instance mentions their names. They are the Spaniards José Fernando Martínez Bascuñana, Luis Manuel Gutiérrez Núñez, Didier Gutiérrez Canedo and Laura García Martin, the Colombians Luis Miguel Cárdenos Castellanos and Andrés Felipe Higuera Castellanos, and the Moroccan Brahim Lebhihe. None of them is in prison, since the whereabouts of all of them are unknown.
cut off feet
The case, which still presents aspects that have not yet been clarified, has given visibility to a little-known phenomenon: forced labor within the renewable industry. This is a novelty compared to the widely documented exploitation of foreigners in the agricultural sector. He lawyer Salvatore Centonzewho has represented 150 complainants who have constituted a private prosecution, says that “it is about one of the largest slavery trials held in Italy” in recent years. “It all started with Italian legislation in 2010 that provided incentives for companies in the sector,” he says.
According to the reconstruction made by Centonze, in fact, the condemned operated under the umbrella of the companybased in brindisiwhich is now declared bankrupt. “That’s how they got 14 parks to build photovoltaic structures,” she asserts. “The problem is that, in order not to lose those incentives, they had to complete the job in very short times and so production intensifiedExplain.
Prosecutor Carmen Ruggiero, from the Brindisi District Anti-Mafia Directorate (DDA), in charge of the case, also emphasizes the contempt expressed against workers foreigners, who “also received you pay 2 euros an hour” and they were in a situation of “great vulnerability”. “In a conversation (of the defendants), they are heard saying that if the boots are not their size, cut them off or feet are cut off”, says the lawyer. “What the case uncovered is that these workers finally rebelled [en la primavera de 2011]they took to the streets to demonstrate and there were even public order problems. That put the focus on the case,” observes Ruggiero.
Deforestation
Related news
The prosecutor, as well as Centonze, says that even so the link with Spain has not been delved into in depth, as it is not consistent with the purposes of the investigation, but that this aspect (the Spanish nationality of the defendants) has not been detected with frequency. “Even so, I had another case, different from this one, but in which I investigated the theft of some solar panels that were sent to Spain and Africa& rdquor ;, says Ruggiero.
He Chief Prosecutor Leonardo De Castrisfrom the Lecce Prosecutor’s Office, believes that in the case it was fundamental that the victims will tell their version, something that does not always happen. In addition, De Castris, who in his career has followed other processes of exploitation of immigrants in the agricultural sector, does not rule out that, in the future, other similar episodes will come to light, since similar phenomena occur in both sectors, such as the use of cheap labor. But the reason is also produced by a paradox, says the lawyer: “In this area of Italy, the sector of the solar energy is growing because deforestation has increased as a consequence of the Xylella plague, which killed thousands of olive trees”.