[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:8634] Italian police planted petrol bombs on G8 summit protesters <fwd>

[Alfred Kagan]

>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 13:28:25 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
>From: Stephen Labash <slabash at UBmail.ubalt.edu>
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:8634] Italian police planted petrol bombs on G8 
>summit protesters <fwd>
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>***
>
>Italian police planted petrol bombs on G8 summit protesters
>
>By Jessie Grimond in Rome
>
>Independent, 30 July 2002
>
>Italian police planted two Molotov cocktails in a school where
>anti-globalisation pro-testers were sleeping to justify a brutal crackdown
>during last year's G8 summit in Genoa. A policeman has confessed that he
>planted the explosives following a year of acrimony over the handling of
>security at the summit where a protester was shot dead by the police.
>
>"I brought the Molotov cocktail to the Diaz school. I obeyed the order of
>one of my superiors," the 25-year-old unnamed officer told prosecutors
>investigating the summit. The Molotov cocktails were planted in the school
>to justify the police raids on the school, he said.
>
>His superior, Pietro Troiani, from a mobile police unit in Rome, is already
>being investigated after another colleague accused him of providing false
>information to justify the raids.
>At the time, the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, insisted that
>the raids proved that the school held violent anarchists who had wrecked
>the city. The presence of Molotov cocktails has been held up by the police
>as justification for their raids on the school. They were shown off to
>journalists along with a nail bomb, two sledge-hammers and a pickaxe, also
>said to have been gathered at the scene.
>
>The anti-globalisation pro-testers who stayed at the school insisted that
>they were not involved in the violence which marred the summit.
>Ninety-three demonstrators were arrested during the raids on the Armando
>Diaz school on 21 July last year. Sixty-three of them reported serious
>injuries. Protesters have claimed that they were beaten unconscious by
>police, deprived of sleep, sexually harassed and denied prompt medical
>treatment.
>
>There is some confusion about the planting of the petrol bombs. Last week
>another policeman said that he had seen Mr Troiani bringing the explosives
>into the school wrapped in plastic. But video footage shot by protesters
>appears to contradict this, apparently showing a group of police officers
>holding the Molotov cocktails before the raid without the plastic.
>
>The government has defended the police action in the face of widespread
>criticism and an admission by the Genoa police chief that his officers used
>"excessive force". It has accused prosecutors investigating the police of
>bias towards the protesters.
>The Italian opposition has accused Mr Berlusconi's conservative government
>of "zero tolerance" towards the anti-globalisation movement.
>
>Police were drafted in from around the country for the summit for which
>250,000 protesters flocked to the city. Seventy seven officers are under
>investigation, including the policeman who shot dead a protester, but no
>one has lost their job.
>Amnesty International has condemned the lack of action by the government to
>bring the police to justice, pointing out that many incidents were caught
>on camera and were "undeniable". The organisation has accused the police of
>"arbitrary arrest and the use of torture and ill-treatment".
>
>There have been allegations that the police were well warned about the
>presence of specific violent elements among protesters but that these
>warnings were repeatedly ignored, leading to speculation that this was to
>allow officers free rein for violence.
>There are now at least 10 criminal investigations into what happened in Genoa.
>
>Magistrates have notified about 80 officers that they are being
>investigated for alleged crimes committed during the school raid, the
>street protests and at the Bolzaneto detention centre where, Amnesty
>International claims, about 200 protesters were tortured.
>
>Protesters have alleged that the police action was sanctioned by
>politicians and they have called upon the Deputy Prime Minister, Gianfranco
>Fini, of the National Alliance Party, to resign.
>--- End Forwarded Message ---


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu