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DEATH PENALTY: CAMPAIGN TO SAVE THE LIFE OF ANTHONY FARINA
October 4, 2012: Hands off Cain together with the Community of Sant’Egidio held a press conference today at the headquarters of the Radical Party to illustrate the start up of the European campaign to save the life of Anthony Farina.
Farina is a man of Italian origin, who was arrested at age 18 for a murder he did not personally commit. He spent 20 of his 38 years of life in the Florida death row.
During the press conference Senator Marco Perduca (Radical Party) reported about the meeting the same morning at the Ministry of External Affairs in order to speed up the procedure to have the Italian citizenship recognized for Farina, whose family came from Sicily. Together with Senator Perduca, the delegation included Mario Marazziti, spokesman for the Community of Sant'Egidio, Harriet McCulloch, investigator for "Reprieve UK", and Professor Sandra Babcock, expert on the death penalty at Northwestern University.
“It was a positive meeting” said Sen. Perduca, “The Government showed to be willing to do its part. Italy had and still has a decisive role in the international campaign for the moratorium on executions, as in the case of Pietro Venezia, who in 1996 obtained from Italy a refusal of extradition towards Florida”.
“In the case of Anthony Farina” said Hands off Cain Secretary Sergio D’Elia “we ask the Italian government to forge ahead with formalizing the Italian citizenship for Farina, so that Italy could legally interject with American authorities, and defend the rights of he who is by all means an italian citizen at risk of execution in Florida”.
“We are satisfied with the meeting we had this morning” said Mario Marazziti, spokesman for the Community of Sant'Egidio “and we want to give way to an international campaign to prevent the killing of Anthony Farina, and to stop the executioner in all similar cases. We can work to have the U.S. Supreme Court declare unconstitutional the death penalty for those who do not materially commit the homicide”.
“Anthony didn’t kill anybody” said Sandra Babcock, “This is the kind of case, and Anthony is the kind of person, that can change U.S. attitude towards the death penalty”.
“I met Anthony a few months ago” said Harriet McCulloch, “He is 38 and has been in prison for 20 years – over half his life. When we met I realized that Anthony’s spirit has miraculously managed to survive, despite everything that he has been through, in his childhood and in prison. Now Anthony knows that he is not alone, that the country in which his family’s story began will stand by him as he fights for his life and this has given him renewed hope for the future”.
On May 19, 1992 Jeffrey and Anthony Farina, brothers, 16 and 18 years old, robbed a fast-food in Daytona Beach. The younger brother killed one of the employees, Michelle Van Ness. Both were sentenced to death. In 2000, due to the fact that he was a minor, the death sentence of Jeffrey was lowered to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. The death sentence of Anthony still stands, and by next year he could come up for execution. (Sources: HOC, 04/10/2012)
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