27.09.03
Indymedia: article from Il Manifesto
in english, article from Il Manifesto about the latest news on genoa g8
In Genoa, a trial against the police
by Alessandro Mantovani, Genoa correspondant
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 police "flying squad"), 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 a hard disk.
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
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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.
A. Man.
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 fach 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 noe has returned to his original post, investigator of Trento. La Barbera, who during the G8 played an obscure role that nobody couls 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)
