Who was Ramy Elgaml and what happened on November 24, 2024

Ramy Elgaml, 19 years old, Egyptian, but resident in Italy for years, died in an accident that occurred on 24 November 2024 in Milan, while he was on board a scooter driven by his Tunisian friend Fares Bouzidi, 22 years old, after an 8 kilometer chase by three police patrols. He would have turned 20 the following December 17th. His death triggered tensions and violence in the suburban neighborhood of Corvetto.

Several videos of the chase then circulated. The police have always maintained that the young man had fallen from the scooter, but according to the lawyers of Ramy and Fares's families it was instead a "voluntary ramming". The Milan Prosecutor's Office has closed the investigations against four carabinieri involved.

After Ramy's death, in various Italian cities - Rome, Milan, Bologna - and in an incandescent atmosphere, many young people took to the streets to protest the boy's death. In the capital there were also clashes with the police and the political debate began to heat up again on security issues.

This is the reconstruction of what happened to Ramy Elgaml on November 24th. The boy was on a large black scooter driven by Fares Bouzidi, a 22-year-old Tunisian, both with criminal records. Before four in the morning they did not stop at the police station next to the nightlife area of ​​Corso Como.

An area where robberies are frequent, but also where police checks are carried out. And in fact on the night of November 24th the Carabinieri had set up a checkpoint, with a mobile forensic laboratory, to ascertain whether the passing drivers had been drinking or taking drugs.

Right in the tunnel the two boys on the scooter sped off against traffic, without stopping. Running they arrived from the other end of Milan, to the south of the city, chased by the carabinieri. On the long straight of Via Ripamonti the 22-year-old lost control of the motorbike which, having climbed onto the pavement, crashed into a wall near Via Quaranta. Ramy Elgaml was thrown before impact. A very strong blow.

118 personnel arrived on site. The medics rushed Ramy to the hospital where he was declared dead.

For the four carabinieri under investigation, the Milan Prosecutor's Office has now closed the investigation with the hypothesis of misdirection: in addition to the two soldiers who later reached the site of the accident, there are also two other colleagues of theirs who, according to the prosecutors, forced a witness to delete the video recording the crash.

Lawyer Piero Porciani, one of the defenders, said: "We are disconcerted. After we demonstrated that the two soldiers were 290 meters from the site of the impact, the prosecutors decided to go ahead anyway."