Luigi Mangione, accused of having murdered the head of the largest American health insurer in New York to take revenge on excesses in this sector, again declared this Friday, April 25, not guilty of murder, before the Federal Justice, where capital penalty risks.
“Not guilty,” said the 26 -year -old man, dressed in a simple Beige detainee combination, when Manhattan’s federal judge, Margaret Garnett, reminded him of his four positions, including the murder with fire.
Luigi Mangione first appeared before the Federal Court since Donald Trump’s justice, Pam Bondi, asked public prosecutors to demand the death penalty against the alleged murderer of the director of UnitedHealtcare, Brian Thompson.
“The murder of Brian Thompson, an innocent man and father of two young children, from Luigi Mangione was a premeditated and composure murder that shocked the United States,” he justified on April 1, denouncing an “act of political violence.”
“Liberate Luigi”
The capital sentence is an additional problem for a case that unleashes passions in the United States. Filmed by the surveillance cameras, the murder of self-depression, with a revolver of silent cannons and on the street at dawn on December 4, of the 50-year-old boss, sowed stupor.
The images of the murderer who expected his goal had turned the world and the search for the suspect for five days had kept the country suspended.
But Luigi Mangione, a useless son of a rich family of Baltimore (Maryland), has become, despite the facts of which he is accused, the symbol of the deep anger that Americans experience against health insurance programs, accused of favoring their profits to the detriment of care and rejection or drag reimbursements.
At the foot of the court, the protesters still came to support him on Friday, maintaining signs in which “Libertz Luigi” could be read, or “without death penalty for Luigi”.
The former Wikileaks Chelsea Manning informant, who had inclined army documents on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, came to denounce “the unprecedented precipitation” of which the case is the subject according to her.
Some have disguised symbolically as “Luigi”, the plumber dressed in green in the Super Mario video game. “This is the system that must be judged,” his followers shouted.
Mangione had already declared himself innocent of “terrorist” murder
“There are many people who do not think that it is guilty, and many people believe that even if it is guilty, it was a necessary evil, because it highlighted the injustices that are broader in the health insurance sector,” said one of the activists, Lindsay Floyd.
Luigi Mangione had already declared himself innocent of the “terrorist” murder before the judge of the state of New York, where he is also accused.
On Friday, his lawyer, Karen Agnifilo, said the federal trial has priority. The defense plans to ask the judge to prohibit prosecutors to require the death penalty. To apply, it will make a unanimous decision of the Citizen Jury that will judge Luigi Mangione.
Unlike the state of New York, the federal state has not abolished the death penalty. Some 16 people were executed after the federal conviction in fifty years, most of Donald Trump’s first mandate.
Brian Thompson has led the Healthcare Health Branch of United Health, United Healthcare since 2021. He has been doing more than 52 million people and has worked with public programs such as Medicare, health insurance for the elderly.
Source: BFM TV
