Gabriel, the eldest son of , has given this Thursday in the Cagliari court a harsh and forceful testimony in the trial for child abuse against his father, Francesco Arcuri, in which he has narrated a situation of continuous attacks between 2019 and 2022, against him and his younger brother, Daniel, 12 years old, who still lives with his father. He has also outlined a picture in which, as he states in his story, all social services controls failed to detect the violence that he claims to have suffered. Gabriel, who has lived in Spain with Rivas since the summer of 2022, when he went to the Carabinieri and spoke for the first time, has given a statement clearly and with emphatic phrases: “I was living in hell”; “In many episodes my father tried to take my life”; “When I went to Spain it was a great pain, because I had to protect Daniel and I left alone.”
It has been the key testimony in this process that has begun with a notable delay: eight years after those from 2017, which were systematically archived. It has only come to trial due to the efforts of Rivas’s lawyer at that time, who managed to reopen the case, when the head of the Prosecutor’s Office took it on directly, an extreme and very rare possibility that Italian law provides for in the face of the inaction of a prosecutor. The Attorney General of the Cagliari court himself even apologized to the lawyer for the “unacceptable delay” of the case.
Before the boy, his mother, Juana Rivas, gave a statement for almost two hours, but it was a chaotic testimony at times. I was very nervous and sometimes I couldn’t hold back my tears. In fact, he has asked to testify with a screen in front so as not to have to see his ex-partner while he spoke.
Being such a complex case that has been going on for ten years, I wanted to tell everything in detail, but it seemed that the judge often did not understand anything. What’s more, on some occasions the president of the court has shown that he was unaware of much of what happened in recent years. The judge has been on the verge of losing patience at some moments and has asked Rivas several times not to gesture: “This is not a theater, it is a process!”
Rivas, who has also faced the difficulty of expressing himself in another language, has recounted the abuse that he knew about through his children when he went to Sardinia to visit them on weekends, and has stated that since 2017 he has taken more than a hundred flights to go see them: “I saw their deep discomfort and a risk of death.” Between 2019 and 2022, he presented a dozen complaints and requests, some of them accompanied by photos of apparent injuries on the body of his youngest son, which were shown to him in the courtroom, as well as medical reports from emergencies or pediatric services in Sardinia. He said that mistreatment “was everyday life, and it had been the same with me, that’s why I believed them.” “It seems exaggerated, I know, but it was like that,” he stated. His lawyer recalled that Arcuri was convicted in 2009 in Spain for mistreatment.
But the really important testimony has been that of his eldest son, because he is one of the two alleged victims and he spoke from direct experience. The two brothers were with their father in Sardinia since Rivas was convicted of child abduction in 2018, after taking her children to Spain in 2016.
The boy, who is now 19 years old, said that he had no problem speaking in front of his father and that they could remove the screen. He has spoken for an hour and 15 minutes. He has shown fortitude and poise, and the atmosphere in the room has completely changed. The prosecutor’s questions have barely been necessary and Gabriel has spoken at times uninterruptedly, in an icy silence before his words.
He has narrated constant attacks in outbursts of anger from his father, often over banal matters. Arcuri heard him sitting just two meters away. Gabriel has listed attempts at strangulation, hitting against furniture, with the shower phone, dragging them by their legs down the stairs, disproportionate punishments such as leaving them outside the house all night (they lived in the country), or being locked in a room for hours without eating or drinking. “One day he picked me up from the ground by the neck, I couldn’t breathe, speak, or move. I thought it was the end of me. I’ve seen similar things with Daniel,” he said. “I completely lost control, and with one bad hit you can lose your life.”
“How many episodes have there been?” the judge asked him to clarify. “Many times. It depended on the moment. When I had visits with psychologists, he frequently threatened me so that I wouldn’t speak. And in those dynamics, it happened almost every day. Other periods, when it was better, it was every four days. Sometimes I returned home and found Daniel on the floor.”
He claims that sometimes “the boy,” referring to his brother, spent the entire night outside the house, punished. That expression, “the child,” has often denoted the responsibility he felt as an older brother towards the little one, and the remorse for having later left him alone with his father.
When he locked his brother in a room and tried to help him, he said, his father grabbed him by the hair: “He told me: ‘Try helping him and I’ll kill you, you’ll never see your mother again.'” He has related that his father “was a different person inside and outside the house, he is very nice, but people didn’t know what was happening at home, when the door was closed, it was hell.” He explained that he lost control for any reason and at that moment he attacked them. On several occasions I tried to record it. “I wanted someone to understand, listen to me, believe me and see what was happening.”
On another occasion he says he put his hand over her mouth. “He told me: ‘You’re a son of a bitch like your mother, you shouldn’t talk to anyone, I’m a good dad, and he kept squeezing my head. You’re a disgusting worm, you’re just like your mother.’ He came closer with his face, his eyes to mine.” In another episode, he maintains, Arcuri picked up a knife. “He told me: ‘Try playing your mother’s little games and I’ll cut off your fingers.’” He has indicated that he was afraid “that he would tell the truth to someone.” “I always said that it was my mother’s theater. That I should not tell my experiences, what happened to me and Daniel. I said that my mother manipulated me. It would have helped me to speak earlier, but I feared for my life, I had to have spoken.”
To questions from the defense, about the expert reports provided in the civil custody case, in which assaults are never mentioned, the young man responded: “Every time I went to a psychologist I was afraid to tell the truth, because the day before my father scared me.” “I was afraid that my father would find out later,” he said. “With my father I have always felt like shit, a person who has no value,” he added later. He has stated that he has never spoken to the educators “because he was always present.” “The only time I spoke was the day of the ship. Because I needed help, to get out of there,” he admitted.
He was referring to the incident that, according to his testimony, made him break his silence, at the beginning of the summer of 2022, when he returned with his father and brother from visiting the psychologist, as they were supposed to do periodically. They live on a small island, Carloforte, and they had gone by ferry. Upon his return, he claims, his father began to scold him because he saw him as very serious: “He wanted me to tell him what he had told the psychologist, he said he wanted to continue with my mother’s theater, he slammed on the brakes and screamed.” Upon entering the boat, after a new argument, he claims that he began to hit the two brothers inside the car, even breaking the rearview mirror. “He grabbed me by the hair and hit me with his head in the car. He stood on top of me with his hands on my neck and yelled at me that I was a son of a bitch like my mother,” he says.
According to his story, some people reacted to the scene and scolded him and at that moment he managed to escape. Upon arriving at the port, he left the ship alone, went home and met the educator who visited them sometimes, Ivanna. “I arrived crying, I felt remorse for leaving Daniel with my father, and I asked her for help. I had never managed to tell her anything,” she said. He said that that day he collapsed and it was the first time he spoke. Then he went to the Carabinieri police station, he gave a statement at the Prosecutor’s Office and two days later he was sent to Spain.
Arcuri’s defense has asked Gabriel why since he went to Spain he has never seen his little brother again, despite having the right to do so: “After the hell I have gone through in Carloforte, I will never set foot there again.” Arcuri’s lawyer has also asked him about a video that he posted on social media in which he accused his father and why he waited until December 2024 to do so: “Because I needed to know what was happening to my brother. I know the situation that is happening. I was afraid of Daniel’s life and I still am afraid. I cannot move forward with my life.”
When he finished his statement, after two in the afternoon, Gabriel went to the back of the room. His mother came up behind him, kissed him on the back of his neck, smiling, and already seemed completely serene, as if a great weight had finally been lifted off his shoulders.
Upon leaving, the lawyer for Rivas and his eldest son, Fabio Cannas, was satisfied. “Gabriel’s reconstruction has been very effective, it is evident that he told the facts realistically and in detail, he has managed to reconstruct the family context in which the abuse took place. He is a very mature boy with great balance.”
Francesco Arcuri’s defense, for its part, has said that Gabriel’s statement did not take them by surprise: “We were convinced that we would hear these things.” Arcuri later said that it has been “a sad day, another sad day.” “Today I was here just to listen, things that I have heard so many times in the Spanish media. It is a sad day for the fact that I have seen my son like this. (…) I hope that everything is clarified, that the truth comes to light, as on the other hand has already happened in Italy and in Spain in the judiciary. I am sorry to see my eldest son involved, whom I love, who has reached this point simply to satisfy people around him. (…) Of course it has been difficult to hear some things, it is terrible. Unfortunately I’m used to it.”
The trial will continue on March 13, with experts and other witnesses from the prosecution, and then, on the 26th of the same month, with defense witnesses.
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