Giorgio Coda

Even though Basaglia Law did not explicitly provide that mental hospitals should be closed, it, in fact, closed most of Italy's mental hospitals, closure that was completed in 1998. Basaglia Law made Italy one of the first countries to abolish mental hospitals.

On December 2, 1977, at around 6:30 pm, four men, all of them members of the Italian Marxist–Leninist terrorist group Prima Linea penetrated into Giorgio Coda's office and shot him in the leg.

The case (as well as the book that collected and analyzed the stories, Portami su quello che canta, published in 1977) shocked the public opinion in Italy and sparked a debate. This led to a new law regulating Italian mental hospitals - the so-called Basaglia Law (in 1978, named after its promoter Franco Basaglia) - that abolished the main articles of the previous law - legge n. 36 del 14 febbraio 1904. The Basaglia Law also introduced and regulated the T.S.O. (that stands for Trattamento sanitario obbligatorio - Obligatory Sanitary Treatment), narrowing its scope and defining a multi-level procedure for its enforcement.

The trial starts right after the Italian court specialized in minors - Tribunale per i minorenni - receives a report from children's social worker Maria Repaci. The report is about the facts of villa Azzurra. On September, 7, Giogio Coda is indicted for the crime "misuse of the correction systems" and the amnesty is granted, as provided by Italian law (DPR n. 238 del 22 maggio 1970).

On December 14, 1970, an Italian judge receives another report from an Italian association - Associazione per la lotta contro le malattie mentali - which turned out to be crucial in order to start the investigation and the trial. On July 11, 1974 Giorgio Coda is found guilty - "responsible for the crime only for the facts of the mental hospital in Collegno". Subsequently, Giorgio Coda's defender appeals against the sentence.

In 1943, Giorgio Coda enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turin and graduated on July 15, 1948 with a thesis about criminal anthropology. On April 16, 1955, Giorgio Coda marries Giovanna Roviera. After becoming head physician of the department, on April 3, 1963 he became a professor of psychiatry.

Giorgio Giuseppe Antonio Maria Coda (born 21 January 1924) is an Italian psychiatrist and professor. He was vicedirector of the mental hospital of Turin (Italian: Ospedale psichiatrico di Torino, in Collegno) and director of villa Azzurra (institute for children), in Grugliasco (Turin) After the trial, that lasted from 1970 to 1974, he was sentenced to five years of imprisonment for patient abuse, as well as to interdiction from the medical profession for five years and payment of legal expenses. He has been nicknamed "The Electrician" (Italian: l'elettricista) for his misuse of the electroshock therapy.

Born in Turin on January 21, 1924 in a wealthy family, Giorgio Coda is the only child of Carlo Coda, a small industrialist from Turin who "regulated the family life as if it were a factory" and Alda Vacchieri. "At school, Giorgio Coda excelled in conduct. He was not brilliant, but very diligent. A few schoolmates remember him as a grind."