Death of Abderrahim Fakir in Bologna: first “criminal shield” case for law enforcement

On 19 July 2026, around midday, on Via Svevo in the Pilastro neighbourhood on the outskirts of Bologna, Abderrahim Fakir, aged 42, died during a police arrest. The scene was filmed by residents from their balconies and widely shared. The footage shows two police officers holding Abderrahim Fakir pinned to the ground, one bearing down on his legs, the other at the level of his head and neck; a resident holds his feet. Abderrahim Fakir cries out “aiuto, basta” (“help, stop”), before his cries fade and his body goes still. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:53 pm.

According to reports in the Italian press, the police officers had been called to a man in distress. At 12:17 pm, they had requested a medical team from the 118 emergency service, believing they were dealing with “a man in a psychiatric crisis”. The arrest was carried out using pepper spray, after which Abderrahim Fakir was thrown to the ground and restrained at the hands and feet. Several witnesses described a man in distress who was harming himself – banging his head, throwing himself to the ground – without posing a danger to others. Abderrahim Fakir, who had arrived in Italy at the age of 7, was going through a difficult period after the death of his mother and was awaiting the outcome of yet another application to regularise his immigration status.

The Bologna public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for involuntary manslaughter concerning six people: two police officers and four paramedics who were present at the scene. Initial medical examinations, including a CT scan, revealed lungs filled with blood. The autopsy, carried out on 24 July, points to a hypothesis of asphyxia by compression, according to the family’s lawyer, Fabio Anselmo. The final results are expected in the following weeks.

The case sets a precedent: it is the first application of the “criminal shield” (scudo penale) adopted by decree in February 2026. Ordinarily, when a person dies during a police operation, the officers are treated as suspects and a full investigation is opened against them. The new mechanism changes this: as soon as it “appears evident” that the officers acted in the course of their duties, they escape suspect status, and the justice system then has only a very short window – around one month, extendable by a few months – to gather decisive evidence. Once that period has elapsed, if the evidence is insufficient, the case is closed without a trial. In plain terms, the text makes it harder from the outset to hold law enforcement to account before a court.

Abderrahim Fakir’s death sent shockwaves across the country. As early as 21 July, a large demonstration was held in Bologna; on the fringes of the march, clashes broke out between some of the protesters and the police. The mobilisation did not stop there: rallies and statements by elected officials, lawyers, and associations followed one another, and, several weeks after the events, the case continues to fuel public debate in Italy. It joins a series of deaths during arrests that have marked the country – from Stefano Cucchi, who died in 2009, to Ramy Elgaml, killed in Milan in 2024 – and has revived opposition to the “criminal shield” and, more broadly, to police violence.

Seen from France, the case is not an isolated one. The Italian “criminal shield” stems from a logic – building an exceptional procedural regime favourable to law enforcement – that can be found, in another form, in the “Pauget law” on the presumption of self-defence for law enforcement, passed by the National Assembly in the summer of 2026. Finally, in the manner of the arrest, it recalls cases documented in the field of investigation into police violence: deaths during ground and prone restraints, of which Index has examined several cases.