Barcelona – "The thing that marked me most of all and that I can't get out of my head was seeing Nicola already on the ground, no longer moving and the violence with which six or seven people around him kicked and punched him, something animal-like." Alessandro Beltrame, who will turn 20 next week, an electrician who has recently finished his studies, is Nicola Maggiotto's friend who has slightly clearer memories of what happened on the evening of 12 August when the 21-year-old from Asolo, in the Treviso area, was attacked from behind with a punch on the back of the head as he was leaving a club in the Port Forum in Barcelona, in a club and an area of the city with a high tourist density. There were eight friends there, all Venetians from the same company, who had left from the Treviso area for a holiday in the week of August. Nicola is still hospitalized at the Hospital del Mar, slightly improving but still in a medically induced coma.
Alessandro, how are you after what happened?
"I'm trying to help Nicola, I'm trying to lend a hand as much as possible to the Barcelona police, they're asking me for some feedback to recognize people but I'm struggling to focus. It's as if my brain has erased the details, it must have been the trauma. However, we have provided some feedback, in the number of people and in some cases also in the identikit."
What do you remember about that evening in the club in Barcelona?
"They recommended this place with the swimming pool to us because there was a party, an Italian PR is organizing the evening. We thought 'how cool' and went. But if we went back I would definitely never go there again."
What happened when you left?
"The bouncers let us out around 9.50pm because the place closes at 10pm. Once outside we started talking to some guys. We hadn't seen them before inside the club, we only met them outside after the evening".
Had they left the SeaSea club like you?
"I think so, I would say 80, 90 percent, but I can't be sure. We came into contact with them on the stairs outside the club that lead to the port exit and to take taxis."
They might have already been out, then?
“I can't rule it out, my feeling is that they went out like us at that moment but maybe they weren't even in the club”.
What did you say to each other?
"I spoke to one of them about the World Cup, a friendly chat, something like "Spain is very strong, they won, Italy didn't even enter". We spoke in English because none of us speaks Spanish. We were ahead of the others, about ten meters at least. Then I saw that he stopped and turned around. And I turned around too."
What did he see?
"There was Nicola who was arguing with some boys. I couldn't hear what they were saying. And shortly after I saw a boy take a run up and hit him on the head, from behind."
And what did he do?
"I ran there, I saw Giuseppe (the other friend, slightly wounded on the cheekbone, ed.) who got in the way, then I saw them both go to the ground, being beaten. I said to myself: 'I better not get in the way too', I just tried to separate them, to do the thing that seemed wisest to me. And they ran away".
Did anyone help you?
“The bouncers had already left, luckily a couple stopped, I called the other five friends of ours who had gone ahead to take the taxi also because at that moment I had a panic attack, and we called for help”.
What nationality were the boys who beat Nicola and Giuseppe?
"At that moment I immediately told my friends that they were Moroccans, so they told me. Today, partly due to shock, I don't have a very clear memory. But as soon as it happened I immediately said so and so I believe it is so. I certainly remember well before the attack that they spoke to each other in Spanish."
Do you have an idea what could have led to the argument?
"Not at all, only Nicola can know, I was too far away, Giuseppe has even fewer memories than me and the other five in the group were at the taxis. I thought about it for a long time, it makes me feel bad not to remember everything well, I struggle to focus on the faces of those boys, but it's as if I had erased the details, perhaps the trauma. But there is one fact."
Which?
“When we said we were Italian they totally changed their attitude, I remember this well, as if they wanted to tease us a bit and were more aggressive”.
Had you been drinking a lot?
“A little but not much.”
How long have you known Nicola and the others?
"Always a bit. Nicola and Giuseppe played rugby together, but we all always go out together, we're in the same company. I'm from Alvitole, which is attached to Asolo, we're all from the same areas."
At the beginning, someone hypothesized that the events in Ceuta had something to do with it, in the wake of the disagreements between Madrid and Rome. What do you think, have you had any perception in this sense?
"Absolutely not, I also heard it later as a hypothesis but we didn't experience anything at all that could suggest a hatred towards Italians."
