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10/08/2005:

"Italian journalist posing as migrant reports abuse at detention camp"

Prosecutors in Sicily opened a criminal investigation yesterday following the publication of a horrific account by a journalist who disguised himself as an illegal immigrant and spent a week in detention.
Fabrizio Gatti, of the centre-left news magazine L'Espresso, said he had seen immigrant detainees being humiliated and physically and verbally abused by paramilitary carabinieri officers.

His account, published yesterday, has disturbing echoes of the scandal involving the mistreatment of prisoners by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It will anger those urging a clampdown on immigration as much as human-rights lobbyists.

After enduring seven days of dire conditions in a detention centre, he was simply let go. Despite the conservative government's tough policy on immigration, the reporter's alter ego, Bilal Ibrahim el Habib, was set free, "to go and work in any city in Europe as an illegal alien".
His journey began when he jumped into the Mediterranean off the Italian island of Lampedusa and floated back ashore on a raft. Lampedusa, midway between Malta and Tunisia, is a favourite destination for would-be immigrants from north Africa.

Mr Gatti was picked up by a passing motorist and handed over to the carabinieri. One officer, he said, amused himself by showing a pornographic video on his mobile telephone to the mainly Muslim detainees in the reception centre on the island.
guardian.co.uk