Vatican: Pope Francis receives Zuncheddu, an innocent man who spent 33 years in prison for a crime he did not commit

Beniamino Zuncheddu, an Italian peasant who was imprisoned for 33 years for a triple homicide that he did not commit, met this Friday with Pope Francis in the Vatican, one of the few wishes that the innocent man expressed upon leaving prison and that today was granted to him.

According to Vatican Newsthe meeting took place in the Library of the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, and in it Zuncheddu presented the Holy Father with the book that he has written with his lawyer, entitled I am innocentin which he recounted his experience in prison and that he has forgiven the person who accused him and then recanted.

“It was beautiful,” Bienamino Zuncheddu told reporters after the conclusion of the private audience with Pope Francis, whom he met some time ago when the Holy Father visited a prison in the Italian city of Cagliari.

According Futurenewspaper of the Italian bishops, the man told the media that he and the Pope remained “in contact by letter. I wrote to him during the review of the process. The Pope has always assured me of his prayers. For me they were a source of comfort and hope. Today’s meeting: a wonderful experience. “We thanked each other.”

Accused of the murder of three farmers in 1991, when he was 26 years old, he was acquitted after the trial was reviewed at the beginning of 2024. Zuncheddu is now 60 years old.

Also present at the meeting with Pope Francis were Zuncheddu’s lawyer, Mauro Trogu, and his family, the parish priest and the mayor of the peasant’s Sardinian village.

“The biggest miscarriage of justice in the history of Italy”

RTVE of Spain points out in a note from April of this year that the Zuncheddu case is considered “the greatest judicial error in the history of the Republic of Italy.”

The man always claimed to be innocent.

According to the Spanish newspaper The Debatethe only survivor of the murders, also Italian Luigi Pinna, had identified Zuncheddu as the person responsible, after a police officer showed him a photo of the latter, telling him that he was the murderer.

Before the appeals court that reviewed the case, Pinna acknowledged that he never saw Zuncheddu at the scene because the murderer had his face covered.

RTVE highlighted that in Burcei, Bienamino Zuncheddu’s hometown, they always believed in his innocence and he was received as a hero when he was released from prison. The priest rang the bells after the last ruling that definitively acquitted him.