Sergio D'Elia

Background

Sergio D'Elia was born in Pontecorvo, in the province of Frosinone, on 5 January 1952, into a family from San Cassiano, in Salento. He graduated in political science at the University of Florence.

In the 1970s he was a member of the armed organisation Prima Linea. In 1983 he was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment for armed gang membership and for moral complicity in the murder of prison officer Fausto Dionisi, killed on 20 January 1978 during the assault on the Murate prison in Florence; the sentence was reduced to twenty-five years on appeal in 1985. He left prison in January 1991, after twelve years in detention, and in 2000 obtained judicial rehabilitation from the Court of Rome.

A journalist, he coordinates the presidency of the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty. From 2006 to 2008 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, elected on the Rosa nel Pugno list, Secretary of the Presidency of the Chamber and a member of the Foreign and Community Affairs Committee.

In Hands Off Cain

He is one of the founders of the association, born in 1993, and its secretary. He coordinates the campaigns for a universal moratorium on executions at the United Nations, the association's missions to countries that retain capital punishment, and relations with international institutions.

He also follows the association's Italian front, from life imprisonment without parole to conditions in prisons, and the publication of the annual report on the death penalty worldwide.