<nettime> Italian police 'framed G8 protesters'

[snafu <mdeseriis@tiscali.it>]

The following article is quite accurate in reconstructing the real dynamics 
behind the "Diaz" massacre.. The only thing to notice is that "this is not 
an episode due to singles or irresponsible officers"...

In Italy, police fabricating false evidences to incriminate activists is 
common practice. Since ever. It is a story we have seen too many times, to 
believe that it is episodic. The only difference is that time was realized 
on a larger scale and under the eyes of hundreds eye-witnesses.

best,

snafu

---


Rory Carroll in Rome
Saturday June 22, 2002
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,741771,00.html
Italian police have been accused of fabricating evidence against
anti-globalisation protesters at last year's G8 summit in Genoa by planting
petrol bombs at their headquarters and falsely accusing them of stabbing a
police officer.
According to a magistrates' investigation, the police improvised lies to
justify a bloodsoaked raid at the Diaz school, which was being used by
protesters as a headquarters. The raid, which left dozens injured after
being kicked, punched and beaten with batons, prompted an international
outcry.
It emerged this week that senior police officers have been placed under
investigation for allegedly making false statements as part of a cover-up.
At a press conference the day after the July 21 raid the police presented an
array of weapons which they said were seized at the school and proved the
occupants were part of the violent Black Bloc anarchists who rioted during
the summit.
Two petrol bombs were displayed as the most damning evidence and prosecutors
said all 93 occupants, including five Britons, could be charged with
conspiracy to bomb and jailed for five years if found guilty.
Genoa magistrates investigating the raid now suspect the Molotov cocktails
had in fact been found by police in the centre of the city, seven hours
before the midnight raid.
Earlier this month Pasquale Guaglione, a deputy police chief, told
investigators that his unit discovered two petrol bombs behind a bush on Via
Corso Italia, the scene of fierce rioting, and passed them on to a mobile
patrol to take back to the police station.
Mr Guaglione said the labels on the wine bottles - a "Merlot" and a "Colli
Piacentini" - were the same as those supposedly seized at the school.
Genoa's police station had no record of receiving the petrol bombs from the
mobile patrol - a unit from Rome which took part in that night's raid.
A colleague based in Florence has supported Mr Guaglione's testimony but
yesterday a member of the Rome-based unit involved in the raid told the
magistrates that he had seen the petrol bombs at the school.
The national chief of police, Gianni De Gennaro, appeared to endorse the
allegations of fabrication by saying any officer who lied would be fired. He
complained that the entire force should not be discredited by the behaviour
of a few individual officers.
It also emerged this week that investigators no longer believe a police
officer who said a protester tried to stab him in the chest during the raid
on the school - a claim which was used last July to suggest the occupants
were violent and resisted arrest.
The rip in his bullet proof jacket was not consistent with a knife and the
police officer may be charged with false testimony, according to
investigators quoted in Italian media reports. The Rome daily La Repubblica
said a "fragile mountain of lies" against the anti-globalisation movement
was crumbling.
The Group of Eight summit was the international debut of Italy's new prime
minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and police sealed off much of the city to keep
hundreds of thousands of protesters away from delegates including George
Bush of the US, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Street battles erupted when police baton-charged protesters who had been
infiltrated by the Black Bloc movement of violent anarchists, leaving 
Genoaa smoking wreck and a rioter shot dead by police.

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