Bologna, August 24, 2026 – On the handcuffs there is a stain of material to be determined, perhaps blood or perhaps rust. There are small biological and hair traces. But no fingerprint marks. No relief fingerprint would have been isolated during the unrepeatable investigations carried out by the Scientific Police of Rome on the security device used by the two police officers who intervened in via Svevo al Pilastro last July 19, to stop Abderrahim Fakir, the 42-year-old who later died at the climax of the containment action.
This is the first assessment of an activity ordered by the Bologna prosecutor’s office (pm Arienti, Ambrosino and deputy Morena Plazzi) on the material seized on the day of the tragedy at Pilastro, starting precisely from the handcuffs. The Scientific Police inspection was intended to determine whether those were actually the handcuffs used in the attempt to immobilize Fakir, who was in the grip of a psychiatric crisis. And also whether such device worked correctly or not.
From the very first stages of the investigation, opened for manslaughter under model ’45 bis’ and with the six names of the two police officers and four Red Cross operators involved noted, it had emerged that the handcuffs used by the officers had malfunctioned. A breakage.
No fingerprints on the handcuffs
That is why the assessment will now move on to the mechanical analysis of the instrument. On the handcuffs, finally, no other fingerprints attributable even to interference or third parties were isolated. “It is a particularly unusual result, but it could also be significant – commented the preliminary results of the unrepeatable assessment lawyer Fabio Anselmo, who defends Fakir’s family –. This is an assessment that starts from a logical premise, so at the base there was a violent compression action that lasted too long. Otherwise, what relevance would the analysis of the handcuffs have to determine if they are the ones analyzed and also to understand if they worked correctly.”
Bordoni: “Result consistent with the position of the officers”
For lawyer Gabriele Bordoni, who defends the two police officers aged 23 and 27, instead the examination “had a result consistent with the position of the officers, who had recently cleaned the handcuffs and wore gloves throughout the containment. In fact, they did not leave recent fingerprints on the device.” In addition to the handcuffs used, the unrepeatable assessment by the Scientific Police of Rome extended with biological and hair investigations to another item seized by the investigators.
It is a white T-shirt, size L, on which yesterday a search was carried out precisely for hair formations and biological traces. On the garment, a series of profiles were isolated in both cases – also probably of blood origin – on which further analyses will now follow for attribution.
Wednesday in Padua the exams on Fakir’s heart
Meanwhile, the last supplementary autopsy exams resume, useful to clarify the dynamics and causes of death of the 42-year-old Moroccan. Tomorrow, in Padua, the experts of the prosecutor’s office and the parties will meet again to open Fakir’s heart, completely removed at the time of the autopsy. Answers are expected from the organ to understand if there are traces of toxicity or compression, as well as any latent heart diseases. Among the investigations opened by the prosecutor’s office remain also that on Abderrahim’s cell phone, with the mobile squad working on the material already extracted, the three-dimensional reconstruction of via Svevo by the Parma RIS and the analysis of the bodycam footage by the Rome RIS.
