Friday, April 27, 2012

The 'world's most pampered - and bored - prisoner'

The 'world's most pampered - and bored - prisoner'

He is the most pampered prisoner in the world, but the sole inmate of the only jail in the microstate of San Marino is said to be suffering from boredom and loneliness.

The 30-year-old man has his meals brought to him from a local restaurant because it is not economical to lay on a canteen service for him alone.

He enjoys the exclusive use of a gym, library and television room and occupies one of six cells which make up San Marino's only jail, which is tucked into a wing of a former Capuchin monastery.

The monastery lies on the flanks of a massive limestone outcrop which, together with a few miles of flat farmland and residential areas, makes up Europe's third smallest state, after the Vatican and Monaco.

As recently as 2009 the minute facility held 14 detainees, but now it boasts just one increasingly bored and lonely prisoner.

Since he moved in last month, the only human contact the man has is with his guards, along with occasional visits from lawyers and relatives.

He is allowed out for an hour each day as a break from what is effectively solitary confinement.

The man, who authorities declined to name because of privacy rules, still has eight months to serve of his sentence, having been convicted on a domestic violence charge.

But his lonely penance is about to come to an end - a second inmate is expected to be incarcerated in the next few days.

San Marino has a population of about 30,000 and claims to have been an independent republic for the last 1,700 years, making it the world's oldest.

A tax haven which has grown rich from secret banking, it has been at the centre of money laundering scandals but otherwise has a low crime rate.

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