Bresci was captured and put on trial, where he was defended by the anarchist lawyer Francesco Saverio Merlino. He was sentenced in Milan on August 29, 1900, to life imprisonment on the jail of Santo Stefano Island near Ventotene, where lot of other anarchists had also been sent over the years. Less than a year later he was found dead in prison. It is not clear whether he committed suicide, as officially announced, or whether he was murdered by his guards.