Italian justice? And the wrong kind of victims

[Penta]

Please note that this is a c+p from the Telegraph, not renowned as a left-wing rag. (The Guardian's comment piece has plenty of criticism of the British government's behaviour as well, but hell, I wouldn't want anyone to get the idea I'm biased and only paste Guardian stories. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ters-trial )


Italian court sparks outrage by clearing 16 senior policemen in G8 Genoa Case
An Italian court has cleared 16 senior police officers accused of orchestrating a brutal crackdown on anti-globalisation protesters at the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa.

by Nick Squires in Rome
Last Updated: 11:40AM GMT 14 Nov 2008

Journalist Mark Covell, who was present at the clashes, reacts to the judges verdict. Following the attack he had told the BBC: "I though I was going to die. I could hear my bones breaking inside" Photo: AP
There were cries of "shame, shame" by outraged activists in the courtroom when the verdict was announced by the judge after a four-year trial.
Among those acquitted in Genoa were the three main officials responsible for maintaining order at the summit in the historic port city in Italy's north-west.
Thirteen more junior officers were found guilty of charges ranging from planting evidence, including Molotov cocktails, to assaulting protesters and conducting arbitrary searches during a pre-dawn raid on a school where protesters, including British activists, were staying during the Group of Eight meeting.
Italy's lengthy appeals process and statute of limitations mean that none are likely to spend any time in prison.
Italian and foreign activists in the Diaz school claimed they were attacked while they slept and described acts of extreme brutality by the paramilitary Carabinieri.
Eighty-two protesters, among them British, Irish, Italian and Polish, were injured during the raid on the school on the night of July 21-22, 2001, and 63 had to be treated in hospital.
Britons caught up in the violence described indiscriminate beatings meted out by baton-wielding olice. A detention centre was compared to a "field hospital in the Crimean War," full of people with broken bones and head injuries.
Police initially accused the protesters of attacking security lines and said weapons had been found at the school. But subsequent investigations showed that the protesters were unarmed and had not reacted violently.
British freelance journalist Mark Covell told the BBC after the attack: "I though I was going to die. I could hear my bones breaking inside. My lung collapsed. Most of my ribs on my left hand side are smashed. My spleen is ruptured.
"That was just the first attack. Then the second one came in. They hit me again, just because I moved a bit. I just moved my arm, and they hit me again, sustained for about five or 10 minutes."
Images of blood plastering the walls and floors of the school sparked outrage in Italy and abroad.
One of the convicted officers, Michelangelo Fournier, repudiated the official line in 2007. He said police left the school looking like a "butcher's shop."
Fournier received a two-year sentence. The rest of the convicted officers received sentences ranging from one month to four years and were ordered to pay financial compensation to the victims.
During demonstrations by anti-globalisation activists during the summit, a protester was shot dead by a carabinieri police conscript, more than 200 people were injured and 240 were detained.
Many of the policemen who were on trial are still in service and some have since been promoted. Two are currently senior officers in Italy's anti-terrorism unit and the secret services. Prosecutors had asked for much heavier sentences.
"Today is one of the saddest days in the post-war history of the republic," said Vittorio Agnoletto, one of the organisers of the anti-globalisation movement and now a member of the European Parliament for the Communist Refoundation party.
"From now on police chiefs who allow their men to smash the heads and the backs of people sleeping peacefully can be sure of impunity and the guarantee of a fine career."
But Interior Ministry Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano, of the right-wing National Alliance party, said the sentence showed Italy's police force is "healthy and deserves everybody's gratitude".
In a separate trial in July this year, another court convicted 15 Italian officials of abusing protesters in detention at a police garrison in Genoa.
Victims told the court that they were kicked, beaten and forced to chant slogans in praise of Mussolini.
Last year, judges convicted 24 protesters of damage and looting, giving them sentences ranging from five months to 11 years in prison.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -Case.html

[coldharvest]

...hippies, fuck'em.
Globalization is the future, once they have the system set up that will then be the time to 'negotiate' the fairness of it.