THEY WILL KILL MY FAVOURITE MODEL!

Rome, July 10, 2001: in spite of the fact that there are appeals pending, Jerome Mallett is scheduled to be executed on July 11, 2001 at 12:01 a.m. in the State of Missouri. He was sentenced to death after being found guilty of killing a Missouri state highway patrolman, James Froemsdorf. There are serious racial overtones in the case as well as the fact that on the same day as, and in the same press release announcing that, the Benetton lawsuit was dismissed, the Missouri Attorney General announced Jerome’s July 11 execution. Jerome was then one of the four Missouri inmates featured in the “We, On Death Row” publication by Benetton whose photo was also put on display at the Valencia biannual from which originated the efforts to save him. “My favourite model will be executed. Jerome’s face was shown around the world on the Benetton billboards, a campaign which had a very strong impact in the United States. I, unlike Benetton, neither came to a compromise nor apologised for having campaigned against the death penalty. What will happen is quite probably revenge without reason,” declared Oliviero Toscani, the ex-Benetton photographer. On Jerome Mallett’s execution Sergio D’Elia declared: “This execution becomes more unacceptable the more one considers that in the state of Missouri a bill was put forward for a moratorium on executions and that the Governor signed in just a few days ago new laws which ban the execution of people with mental retardation. All this makes Mallett’s execution more unjust and paradoxical, and more urgent the actions to stop it, which can be done by signing on our website www.handsoffcain.org or sending a fax directly to Governor Holden: 001 573 751 1495.”