Source Il Manifesto 13th May 2003
By Alessandro Mantovani
All of the 93 people injured in the raid at the dormitory-school of Gsf have been released without charge.
The judge ruled: “ We believe the arrested people’s declarations are true”. Schiaffoni has told to Canterini and to State attorney Lalla. Magistrates have now placed hundred police officers under investigation. Allegations for the 93 no global protesters arrested in the school Diaz, on the night of 21st July 2001, after the search which caused 62 injured and put an end to the G8 in Genoa, have been dropped. The judge Anna Ivaldi, with an ordinance 13 pages long presented yesterday, has dismissed the case
for resistance and violence to public officers, personal injures at the police officers and for illegal detention of non conventional weapons. This ordinance was expected because it just confirms what the same judges in Genoa verified in the days after the G8, that was why they denied to valid the arrests. Instead the reasons are not obvious but meaningful. They sound like a big choc to the Genoa Chief of Prosecutor Office Francesco Lalla, who asked to dismiss the case because it was impossible- he said- understand
who was responsible for the every single act against the police officers, that by the way, Dr. Lalla believed took place. Now the ordinance establish that “the only possible reconstruction is the one that exclude that the persecuted have really done these acts of resistance and this, simply because what they declared has not been proved to be wrong in fact has been confirmed by the police officers statements”. The prosecuted versions, points out the judge, fit together even for the details since the beginning
, when they would not have had the opportunity to agree a common version.
And in response to that, you can read in the ordinance, “there are the medical reports, 62 needed hospital treatment, 3 were in reserved prognosis and 28 had been taken to the hospital. Almost all the reports included “skull trauma”- remember the judge herself- and furthermore many have reported fractures to upper limbs just as when someone is trying to defend himself from being beaten protecting his head with his arms”. On the other hand among the police officers questioned the only ones who reported
resistance acts are some belonging to the special forces but there are other declaration from officer belonging to the same department that contradict while instead state that many of the ones who were arrested were injured”.
The ordinance is harsh for Vincenzo Canterini, head of the police
anti-terrorist unit that took part in the first phase of the blitz (but as
can be seen in the videos, they were together to some other plainclothes policemen with breastplates or different uniforms, many of them could not be identified, they were in total 170). The judge emphasizes that Canterini gave two different versions to the prosecutors in six days. The resistance was the likely stone-fight against the police forces in the courtyard, before they broke down the entrance, the closing of the gate and of the internal doors, that however, according to the judge, cannot be considered as “unconventional violence” as Lalla thought. It cannot be enough, writes the judge “anything to refrain from the doing those acts”.
Moreover it has been demonstrated that the two Molotov cocktails were brought in by the police forces, this means allegation of false and slander for about twenty police officers (including people like Franco Gratteri, head of the Central Operations Services of the police forces and close to Gianni De Gennaro), the judge Ivaldi arrives almost to ridicule the public allegation. “ Although it goes on towards the signatories of the acts of false offence, the public prosecutor’s office ends, also considering those acts, saying that did take place resistance acts, high degree thief and detention of non conventional weapons”. Finally if they are false they cannot be true only for the allegations against the 93 occupiers.
Among them there were 78 foreign people, many of them were German and 15 Italian including the reporter Lorenzo Guadagnucci from the Resto del Carlino (who reported two arms fractured) now devoted in the committee Verità e Gistizia that has Giulietto Chiesa as Onorary President . Formally the 93 are still prosecuted for conspiracy aimed to waste and loot in the
file regarding the street demonstrations. But in two years it has not been found a video, a photography, a witness that prosecute some of them to take part to the riots and damaging although big efforts by the commission G8 of the Genoa police-headquarters, of Digos from other areas of Italy and from the Carabinieri from the Ros (and perhaps of some foreign police forces). This is the enquiry that on 4th December, excluding the conspiracy suggested
by Ros of General Giampaolo Ganzer (waste and looting are enough for convictions with two digits) has caused 23 among arrests and restrictive measures for some other demonstrators who have been identified by the video.
It’s a paradox that while the police officers prosecuted are all of them in the same position as before, the 28 years old Francesco “Jimmy” Puglisi from Catania from the Centro Sociale Guernika-fabrik still is imprisoned from 5 months in the prison of Messina; and that other 17 activists are still at arrests domiciliary or home obligation or daily signature in police station.
After the dismissal of the allegations against Mario Placanica, the
carabiniere who has admitted it was him who fired against Carlo Giuliani, the yesterday ordinance is the first act with which the judges of Genoa take away from police forces the possibility of getting away with it.
The judge could not occupy herself of the stabbing that would have occurred to the roman police agent Massimo Nucera during the breaking into the dormitory-school of the Genoa Social Forum, currently under investigation.
Regarding other aspects the enquiry has been dismissed and the police officers under prosecution are a hundred among the Canterini boys (about 70) and middle and high-rank officers, till Gratter, and his SCO Deputy Gilberto Caldarozzi, number two counter terrorism officer Gianni Luperi, Bologna Police Deputy Head Lorenzo Murgolo, Genoa head of Digos Spartaco Mortola and other officials of special departments from various cities.
Regarding the requests to start the trial (participation in beatings, false allegations and slander) is just beginning a first degree trial inside the Prosecutor office. On a hand the State Attorneys who have collected many evidences against the police forces, although great difficulties; on the other dr. Lalla, appointed by the CSM (Higher Council of Judges) with the left parties votes and MD (the main judges’ association) who holds a more compromising attitude. By the end of the summer we will also know how it
ends with the Pascoli school, the looted media centre in front of Diaz, and also for the torturers in the Bolzaneto police station.
Translated by Genoveffa Corbo
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