Viadana (Mantova), 12 novembre 2023 – “For compensation, they told us that we had already been compensated. For the failure to award the Gold Medal to the victims of the Nassiriya massacre, it is something that continues to sadden and depress us.” Twenty years ago, Italy was moved by the images of that little boy in a Carabinieri uniform following his father’s funeral, Lieutenant Filippo Merlino, commander of the Viadana station, one of the nineteen Italian victims (twelve Carabinieri, five Army personnel, two civilians) of the Nassiriya attack.
It was November 12, 2003, when an al-Qaeda truck bomb caused twenty-eight deaths at the “Maestrale” base. Fabio was thirteen years old and had a destiny as a fighter marked by his birth with spinal muscular atrophy, which had always confined him to a wheelchair.
Bureaucratic Odyssey
It is difficult to reconcile grief and bureaucracy. “Compensation,” says Fabio, “recognized by the Court of Cassation, was denied to us because we were supposedly compensated by insurance. But one thing is the insurance that covers every military personnel, every public employee, and another thing is the compensation that is due by law to the victims of terrorism.”
On this point, lawyer Francesca Conte, legal representative of numerous families of the victims, intervenes and clarifies: “We won twice before the Supreme Court of Cassation, once in criminal proceedings for civil interests only, and once in civil proceedings, which condemned General Bruno Stano (commander of the “Antica Babilonia” mission in Iraq, acquitted in criminal proceedings – ed.). We went before the civil court in Rome for the quantification of the damages, but compensation was denied to us on the grounds that there was an insurance policy signed at the time by the family members, in which they seemed to waive any further claims for compensation. We asked to see the policy, but neither the State Attorney’s Office nor the Court provided it for us to view. Not only that, when we asked for the settlement of the legal costs, the Court even revoked the benefit of free legal aid for the victims of terrorism. All of this is unacceptable. That is why we currently have a series of ongoing disputes with the State.”
The Missing Tribute
The Gold Medal, a wound that is always open. “It is inconceivable,” says Fabio Merlino, “that it is not awarded to these heroes who sacrificed their lives for the country. It is inconceivable that they do not tell us the reasons. The President of the Republic could grant it ‘motu proprio.’ I appeal to him: ‘President Mattarella, the heroes of Nassiriya deserve the Gold Medal.'”
For this twentieth anniversary, we expected more solemnity. It was only after our insistence that a parchment was made and a tree was planted in the “Salvo d’Acquisto” barracks in Tor di Quinto, Rome. The Nassiriya massacre has never appeared in the annual calendar of the Carabinieri. Yet, in the post-war period, it was the event in which the Corps paid the highest tribute.”
Fabio’s Battles
Fabio Merlino and his rebirths. After his father’s death, standing strong and determined beside his mother Alessandra. After spinal surgery. After Covid. Sports. “I always went to the stadium with my dad. In our last phone call, the night before the attack, we had agreed to go see Modena-Juventus. He would have returned two days later. In Bologna, they had told me about wheelchair hockey. I founded the Warriors Viadana on September 20, 2014, the day of my spinal surgery nine years earlier, a day that was like a second birth. Until last December, I was on the field as captain. Now I coach. We are a structured club, playing in A1 with fifteen athletes. Three years ago, the wheelchair football team was born.”
“My father is always by my side. In certain circumstances, I wonder what he would have thought, how he would have acted. I try to be inspired by him, especially by one of his great teachings: never give up.”
