The European court of Human Rights has ruled that the conditions a Bosnian prisoner was forced to endure in an Italian prison amounted to a breach of human rights.

The court said that, between 1992 and 1998, Izet Sulejmanovic had been convicted several times for robbery, attempted theft, handling stolen goods and forgery, and sentenced to two years in prison.

He was arrested in November 2002 while applying for a resident's permit and imprisoned in Rome's Rebibbia jail. There, he served a nine month sentence from November 2002 to October 2003.

Lack of space a violation of human rights

“Izet Sulejmanovic was put in a number of different cells, each measuring 16.2 square meters (174.4 square feet),” the court said in a statement.

For about two-and-half months, Sulejmanovic shared his cell with five other inmates, which meant each of them had just 2.7 square meters of personal space.

The court ruling, issued in mid-July but only reported this week, stated that “up until his release, Sulejmanovic had personal space of 3.24 m2, 4.05 m2 and 5.40 m2 respectively.”

In a five to two vote, judges ruled that Italy had violated Suleijmanovic's human rights and subjected him to “inhuman or degrading treatment” . The court cited guidelines that set the minimum space for prisoners at seven square meters.

“Sulejmanovic had spent more than eighteen hours per day in his cell and could only go out for four and a half hours," the ruling added.

The court ordered the Italian government to pay Sulejmanovic 1,000 euros in compensation.

Thousands of inmates suffer the same conditions

The ruling could spark a wave of lawsuits, according to British-based prisoners' rights group, Antigone.

“Following the European Court (ruling) in favour of this Bosnian prisoner, the state risks having to pay 64 million euros in compensation,” Antigone's president Patrizia Gonnella told Reuters.

Italy's jails have been overcrowded for years. At the end of July, they held more than 63,600 prisoners, 20,000 more than they are designed to hold. Forty percent of inmates are foreigners.

Rome issued a mass pardon in 2006, the last time it dealt with prisoner overcrowding. The then center-left government released 24,000 prisoners, twice as many as the 12,000 originally intended. This pardon has since been blamed for a sharp increase in crime. The current conservative government of Silvio Berlusconi has ruled out any new pardons. When Berlusconi was elected in April 2008 he promised to crack down on crime and provide 17,000 new prison places. His government also wants to send foreign prisoners back to their home countries to serve out their sentences.

wl/Reuters/afp

Editor: Susan Houlton