24.10.03
Two articles from Il Manifesto
GENOA - Today, the Genoa Prosecutor sent to 73 people notices that
investigations against them been closed. The investigations in question
were all part of a two-year inquiry into the events that took place in the
Diaz and Pascoli schools and in the Bolzaneto police barracks during the
G8
summit. From the Diaz and Pascoli schools, 30 people have charges against
them; the defendants are police, penitentiary personnel, and medical
staff.
According to the group of judges (Cardona Albini, Miniati, Patenti,
Petruziello, Pinto and Zucca), among the 30 accused there are the most
important chiefs of police (of the SCO, UCIGOS, and Mobile Units) who are
accused of slander, false arrest, assault and battery, and abuse of
authority. Those accused are those who took part in two closed meetings
the
night of Saturday, July 21, who were involved in the raids, and in the
fabrication of evidence -- two molotovs that thad been brought from corso
Italia into the school, and in an episode that -- according to the
prosecutor -- involved cutting the jacket of agent Massomo Nucera (who is
among the accused) to fabricate evidence of a stabbing. Among those
accused
are the directors who, according to the judges' reconstruction of events,
organized and took part in the Diaz School operation that ended with
almost
all of the 93 activists inside the school being injured.
Among those who received notice that the investigations against them had
been closed, was Vincenzo Canterini, who was responsible for the first
section of the Mobile Police Unit of Rome and for the seventh anti-riot
unit
created specifically for the G8, his second-in-command Michelangelo
Fournier
who was the squadron chief; Francesco Gratteri, then director of the SCO
(Central Operations Service) and his second-in-command Gilberte
Caldarozzi;
Gianni Luperi who was then second-in-command to Arnaldo La Barbera, chief
of
the UCIGOS; Spartaco Mortola, ex-chief of the Genoa DIGOS; Pietro Troiani
of
the Rome Mobile Unit and his driver Michele Burgo; Massimilani Di
Barnardini, Lorenzo Mugolo, and other direct subordinates to the assistant
chief of police Andreassi (who was not given notice that any investigation
against him had been closed); the director of the Mobile Unit of La Spezia
Filippo Ferri; and the commissionar Fabo Ciccimara of the Naples Mobile
Unit. For the raid on the Pascoli School, three police directors stand
accused, among them the chief of the Mobile Unit of Nuoro, Salvatore Gava.
On the cover of their statement, the judges chose to put the photo of one
of
the 93 Diaz-School arrestees, Lena Zuhlke, a German woman who left the
school on a stretcher. In ten pages, the group of judges draw
information
from two years of investigation and 42 interrogatory interviews, many of
them repeated, and testimonies, including testimonies drawn from the
interrogations of the 93 demonstrators, who at the moment still stand
accused of criminal association (the charge of resistance was dropped at
the
end of May).
For Bolzaneto, headquarters of the sixth Genoa Mobile Unit, which became
the
registration center for those arrested during the G8, seventy more notices
were sent, announcing the end of the preliminary investigation phase.
Today, 43 people received notice that investigations against them were
closed, including the directors of the intermediary staff of the police
and
the penitentiary personnel, as well as the medical personnel. The charges
are of abuse, infliction of injuries and wounds, verbal abuse, omission of
official facts and omission of reports. Among others, Alessandro Prugini,
then assistant chief of the Genoa DIGOS, and a large part of the medical
personnel, including doctors Giacomo Toccadondi and Amoaldo Amenta. As of
today, the acused have 20 days to request that they be interrogated again.
Then they could be truly sent to trial.
(translated from a letter sent among the European Association of
Democratic
Jurists, September 12 2003.)
In Genoa, a trial against the police
by Alessandro Mantovani, Genoa correspondant
Il Manifesto, September 13, 2003
It was not a matter of "a few bad apples," or of "individual abuses." As
one
judge put it, "the ones responsible are not the soldiers, but the
generals."
The 73 notices that the Genoa Prosecutor sent yesterday, which gave notice
of the closing of investigations, the final notice necessary before the
prosecutor makes a request that the officers responsible for the police
violence in the Diaz/Pascoli School and in Bolzaneto be brought to trial,
constitute an accusation against the Italian police force in general.
Franco Gratteri, second-in-command to Gianni De Gennaro, will have to
answer
charges of false arrest, aggravated slander, and abuse of his office, for
the "search" that resulted in a bloodbath, the night of July 21st two
years
ago, after two days of street clashes. In this raid, there were 61 people
wounded, 93 arbitrary arrests, two molotovs planted as false evidence, a
made-up stabbing, and false verbal accounts of "violent resistance" and of
carpenters' tools as "ad-hoc weapons".
The same serious charges apply to Gianni Luperi and to Lorenzo Murgolo,
marked as those who commanded the operation along with Gatteri and the
dead
Arnaldo La Barbera, who at the time was head of the anti-terrorist unit of
the police force. According to the prosecutor, they acted "in order to
fabricate a collection of evidence against the people arrested, abusing
their office and slandering the arrestees, not to mention their attempt to
justify the violence used." "Constituting by virtue of their hierarchical
position, the highest level of responsibility," the judges continue, "and
exercising a de facto power to be aware of what really happened, they
induced agents and officers of the judiciary police to falsely testify
that
they had encountered resistance to their raid, that the tools and sticks
found had been used as ad-hoc weapons or to commit acts of resistance,
that
they had found two molotov cocktails, and that one officer had been
stabbed
in the chest." Furthermore, the judges continue, "knowing the defendants
to
be innocent, they charged each one of the aforementioned arrestees with
the
crimes ascribed to them, such as criminal association with the goal of
destruction and looting, resistance to a public officer, possession of
explosives and of ad-hoc weapons, let alone the individual accusations of
attempted murder."
Equally serious are the charges against ten middle-level civil employees,
mostly assistant prosecutors, who wrote or signed the police reports of
what
had happened in the School: Gilberto Caldarozzi (second-in-command to
Gratteri), Spartaco Mortola (ex police chief of the Genoa DIGOS, which are
the Special Operations and General Investigations Division of the police
force), Nando Dominici (ex chief of the Genoa riot police), Filippo Ferri
(chief of the La Spezia mobile police unit), Massimiliano Di Bernardini
(anti-looting division of the Rome mobile unit), Fabio Ciccimarra (the
much-decorated "mobile officer" from Naples), Carlo di Sarro (formerly of
the Genoa DIGOS), Massimo Mazzoni (police inspector of the Central
Operations Service), Davide De Novi and Renzo Cerchi ("mobile officers" of
La Spezia). The reports of the arrest, according to the prosecutor, were
written up by Ciccimarra, Ferri and Di Bernadini. The search and siezure
of
materials within the school were issused on the Mazzoni's authority, who
was
directly responsible to Gratteri.
There will be no trials against the individual officers taking part in the
raid. Those who will be tried for the bloodbath will be the chiefs of the
mobile unit (formerly the rapid-response unit) from Rome and of the
seventh
anti-riot squad, which was created for the G8. Vicenzo Canterini, his
second-in-command Michelangelo Fournier, and the eight squadron chiefs
(Fabrizio Basili, Ciro Tuddi, Carlo Lucaroni, Emiliano Zaccaria, Angelo
Cenni, Fabrizio Ledoti, Pietro Stranieri and Vincenzo Compagnone) stand
accused of collusion in assault and battery resulting in grave injuries;
Canterini is also charged with slander and false arrest. The prosecutor
writes that, "in conjunction with other officers and agents, they caused
various personal injuries, including very serious ones, to the people
present inside the building, by hitting the people with pieces of
equipment
and committing other acts of violence against them; they are responsible
by
virtue of having committed acts of violence themselves, and facilitating
and
failing to prevent the violent acts of others, fraudulently exceeding the
limits of the legitimate use of physical force (...), violently beating
the
aforementioned people, all this in the face of obvious expressions of
non-offensive and submissive attitudes, in some occasions even cruelly
continuing to beat those who were already on the ground.
The injuries caused during the raid included fractures of skulls and of
arms, a smashed spleen and testicles, perforated lungs... the only thing
that has saved those seventy of the "troop" that made the raid from
individual proseuctions is that they had their faces covered. For the
rest,
many other officers too part, in plainclothes as well as in uniform, but
they have never been identified. According to the prosecutor, "more than
two
hundred" took part in the police action, but a full list of the officers
involved was never given to the prosecutore. The official records do not
show the presence of Pietro Troiani, the assistant investigator who
brought
the molotovs to the school, nor of the assistant Michele Burgio, who
confessed to having had the power to order the police to disperse; these
two
also stand accused. Finally, charges of false arrest and slander are
levvied
against officer Massimo Nucera, who said that he had been stabbed, and
against inspector Maurizio Panzieri, who confirmed Nucera's story.
Three civil employees who helped authorize the search of the Diaz Pascoli
School also face trial: they are Salvatore Gava, head of the Nuoro mobile
unit, Alfredo Fabbroncini and the Roman "mobile officer" Luigi Fazio. This
last officer stands accused also of having beaten a young German. It is
said
that they entered the Diaz Pascoli School "by accident"; Gratteri has
assumed responsibility ; during the raid, they destroyed computers of the
Media Center and of the legal offices: this was arbitrary search and
siezure, and violence and damage against private property. It was also
theft, because they stole the hard disks.
Bolzaneto was "inhuman and degrading." There have been thirty notices of
investigation closures for the Diaz/Pascoli School raid and 43 for the
abuses in Bolzaneto. But among these latter investigations, only five are
directed against individuals recognized as having committed specific acts
of
violence, threats, and injuries. The other investigations are directed
against those responsible for the police barracks that were transformed
into
a prison outpost. These individuals include Giacomo Toccafondi, the prison
doctor in camouflage overalls, accused of abuse of his office, violation
of
penitentiary rules and regulations, abuse of his authority over the people
arrested, violation of the right to health care provided by the
Constitution, failure to assist people in need, and violation of
fundamental
human rights. Another of them is the police officer Massimo Luigi
Piccozzi,
who broke a boy's hand.
Among the State Police, the responsible police chief was Alessandro
Perugini, second-in-command of the Genoa DIGOS, who kicked a boy from
Ostia
(Roma) in the face. He is charged with having "tolerated and or having
failed to prevent the fact that people were subjected to inhumane,
degrading, and humiliating treatment, without respect for human dignity.
In Bolzaneto, the prosecutor states, "in their cells, the people were
required to hold humiliating positions for long periods of time; when they
were moved, the staff beat and threatened them in the hallways, being the
policemen disposed on boths lines on the opposites sides of the room"
Furthermore, the prisoners were subjected to "offenses and insults
referring
to their political opinions, such as 'communist bastard' 'communist
insect'
"'I heard Bertinotti (the leader of comunist party in Italy) calling' and
'I
give you Che Guevara and Manu Chao,' 'Che Guevara son of a whore,'
'terrorist bomber' etc." as well as referring to their sexual lives and to
their religious beliefs, such as 'fucking Jew' and 'fucking faggot', "and
were forced" to listen to fascist expressions (such as a cell phone whose
ringing was programmed to sound like the theme from Faccetta nera bella
abbissina (the traditional song from Mussolini time, when italians
soldiers
were sent to Somalia) and chants such as "one two three, long live
Pinochet,
for five six, death to Jews.") And later, "they were subjected to
beatings,
threats, being spat upon, and verbal abuse."
The Genoa prosecution in this matter is divided amond several judges. Six
magistrates have signed the accusations described above: Francesco Cardona
Albini, Vittorio Ranieri Miniati, Monica Parentini, Patrizia Petruzziello,
Francesco Pinto, and Enrico Zucca. Missing from the signatures, however,
are
the principal investigators: the chief prosecutor Francesco Lalla and his
adjunct Giancarlo Pellegrino, who in these past two years have encouraged
above all the investigations against the demonstrators, as well as the
arrest and bringing to trial of 26 people accused of destruction and
looting.
Pisano is not seen much, either. The Minister of the Interior immediately
commented, "It is only a procedural investigation, according to Beppe
Pisanu. The Italian police is therefore confident that it can serenely
face
any judicial actions taken and, if necessary, tranquilly make whatever
administrative decisions that any eventual court judgment would render
opportune."
translated from http://www.ilmanifesto.it/g8/dopogenova/3f634b3d80da1.html
----------------
Promotions for all the policemen facing trial for the G8
In two years, no one has been punished, except those who sought to
investigate the facts, or tell the truth.
ALESSANDRO MANTOVANI
GENOA
Many civil employees who will go to trial for the G8 have been promoted or
nominated for prestigious awards. This is the case of Francesco Gratteri,
the apprentice of Gianni De Gennaro, recently promoted to the chief of the
antiterrorism unit (formerly UCIGOS) after having directed the SCO
(Central
Operations Service) of Criminalpol. The nomination is strange because
Gratteri, who made his career in antimafia law enforcement, during the
1980s
never was engaged with politics but only with large organized crime
bodies,
and in fact announced that he would apply to his new "clients" the same
tactics that were developed against Cosa Nostra. One of his direct
subordinates is his codefendant Lorenzo Murgolo, who has already been made
second-in-command of the police headquarters in Bologna.
And to complete the political police force of De Gennarro there is Gianni
Luperi, director of the General Investigative Division: he also faces
charges from the Diaz School. A film shows all off them, in the school
courtyard, gathered around the bag with the two fake molotovs. They are at
their post along with the others, the assistant investigator and commisars
of the chief of the DIGOS political police, and the mobile squads of the
criminal police: Filippo Ferri of La Spezia and Salvatore Gava of Nuoro.
Instead, there have been proceedings against Fabio Ciccimarra, who has
been
confined to a useless Rome office after having been accused of taking part
in actions that took place in the Raniero police barraks in Naples. The
Genoa officers have remained in Genoa: the ex chief of the DIGOS Spartaco
Mortolais currently directs the police postal and data-transmission
system,
and his former second-in-command Alessandro Perugini, who is currently the
head of staff of the police headquarters, despite the fact that he faces
charges for Bolzaneto and for the incredible cruelty of having coldly
kicked
a boy who was already immobilized. It is useless to speak of Vincenzo
Canterini, protected as he is by the Consap police trade union, which
elected him secretary: the Roman chief still reigns.
Shortly after the G8, the chief of police sent to Genoa three other civil
employeest to conduct a fruitless internal investigation. Pippo Micalizio,
the officer in charge of the Diaz affair, did not behave too badly: while
he
ignored the two false molotovs, he proposed eight disciplinary proceedings
against many civil employees, including the untouchable Gratteri, and
requesting that Canterini be removed from the police force. But the only
one
to pay the price was Micalizio himself, who is still deprived of any
relief
assignments. De Gennaro instead removed the Genoa investigator Francesco
Colucci (guilty of many things, but above all of having given over
responsibility to the directors who arriged from Rome); Arnaldo La
Barbera,
then chief of the antiterrorism unit; and the former police
second-in-command Ansoino Andreassi.
But Colucci has served two years of quarantine and now has returned to his
original post, investigator of Trento. La Barbera, who during the G8
played
an obscure role that nobody could say much about until 2002, has been
dismissed from the service. Andreassi has also finished his employment in
service to the SISDE, as second-in-command to Mario Mori, the general of
the
Carabinieri military police who directs the Civil Secret Service. For him,
this was indeeda punishment. It was normal: at the G8, in fact, Andreassi
committed less damage than others, took part in the operations after the
arrival of La Barbera (during the afternoon of Saturday July 21st), and
did
not participats in the preparations for the Diaz School search, neither
was
he present on-site. During Micalizio's investigation, he was the only one
not to come up with a bad face. Both are treated as witnesses, both are
concerned that they not play the part of informers, of the "infamous"
officers, as in any other criminal context. But if Micalizio has confirmed
the investigation that started in August of 2001, Andreassi has helped the
judges to reconstruct that afternoon and evening, which started with the
hunting of the no-global activists and ended with the Diaz School.
(translated from
http://www.ilmanifesto.it/g8/dopogenova/3f634b34f3991.html)
"il manifesto", 13 September 2003
