Statewatch News Online: Italy: Genoa G8: Final sentences for both police and demonstrators
28 March 2012
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Italy 
Genoa
G8: Final sentences for both police and demonstrators
30.08.2012
On 5 and 13 July 2012, the Corte
di Cassazione in Rome (Italy's highest appeal court) issued the
final sentences in two key cases dating back to the infamous
G8 summit held in Genoa on 20-21 July 2001.
The first sentence, issued on 5 July by the fifth section of
the court, concerned the raid on the Diaz school during which
sleeping demonstrators were beaten indiscriminately. The sentence
confirmed the convictions made by the court of appeal for higher
ranking officers involved in the raid, several of whom have since
been promoted to key positions: five years for Vincenzo Canterini;
four years for Giovanni Luperi and Francesco Gratteri; three
years and eight months for Gilberto Caldarozzi, Filippo Ferri,
Fabio Ciccimarra, Nando Dominici, Spartaco Mortola, Carlo Di
Sarro, Massimo Mazzoni, Renzo Cerchi, Davide Di Novi and Massimiliano
Di Bernardini. They will be banned from holding public office
for five years. Nine officers from the Rome flying squad special
unit who had been found guilty of causing serious bodily harm
during the raid had their convictions quashed as a result of
the statute of limitations. None of the convicted officers will
spend a day in prison, but the sentence opens the way for the
victims to receive payments.
The second sentence, concerning demonstrators who caused damage
in Genoa and were accused of the extremely serious offence of
"destruction and looting", ended with five final convictions.
Their exemplary sentences are as follows: one to 14 years, one
to 12 years and six months, one to 11 years and six months, one
to 10 years and one to six years and six months. Unlike the police
officers, they will serve their sentences in prison and, also
unlike the police officers, their violence was directed at objects
rather than people. The Corte di Cassazione ruled that five other
defendants will have their cases reviewed by the Genoa court
of appeal to take account of the mitigating circumstance that
they may have acted "under suggestion by a crowd in turmoil".
They were previously convicted to between seven years and ten
years and nine months by the court of appeal. A campaign to support
the ten demonstrators who were convicted on appeal out of the
25 who were tried, called "10 x 100 Anni di Carcere. Genova
non è finita" (10 for a 100 years in prison. Genoa
is not over), has been launched and had collected 30,000 signatures
of support by the time of the Corte di Cassazione sentence.
Repubblica 5.7.2012,
15.7.2012.
"10 x 100 Anni di Carcere. Genova non è finita",
appeal, http://www.10x100.it/?page_id=19
The following is an article by Salvatore Palidda of Genoa University that highlights the reasons why these sentences are "extremely unbalanced".
In Italy, an ambiguous justice
This article "En
Italie, une justice ambiguë", was first published (in
French) in "Mediapart" on 20 July 2012. Translation
by Statewatch.
Everyone recalls the violence, abuses of power and torture by
numerous police officers against demonstrators during the Genoa
G8, as well as the violence by the self-styled "black bloc".
Eleven years after 20 and 21 July 2001, the third instance of
Italian justice [the Corte di Cassazione, Italy's highest appeal
court] has just issued its definitive sentence against the officers
accused of beating the 93 demonstrators who were sleeping in
the Diaz school and then, straight afterwards, a second verdict
against ten demonstrators who were charged for "destruction
and looting" and accused of being responsible for the "devastation"
of the city and for seriously endangering public order.
The judicial treatment of the Genoa G8 thus sought to portray
a balanced image, convicting both police officers and demonstrators
at the same time.
But the truth is that these two sentences (as well as the others)
are extremely unbalanced. This is why:
1) The highest officials in charge of public order in Genoa have
been left untouched. Giovanni De Gennaro, head of the police
at the time, advanced his career to the point where he became
head of Italy's secret services, and is currently the Monti government's
under-secretary in charge of these services. Still in a position
of great power thanks to the support of heavyweight figures on
the left and right alike, he was even able to change the rules
for career advancement in the police in order to promote his
supporters and freeze the careers of those who disagreed with
his methods.
2) Almost all of the police officers, and particularly those
from the carabinieri, who were responsible for disorder in the
streets and even for considerable destruction or devastation
(as was widely documented in hundreds of images, videos and testimonies
in court) were not even charged. In particular, there was flagrant
evidence of how the carabinieri had provoked disorder and destruction
through an unlawful attack on the authorised and peaceful march
of the so-called "tute bianche" (anti-globalisation
activist group, lit. "white overalls") as well as other
demonstrators, including children, elderly people, nuns and priests
(1).
3) The police officers who were convicted - and given relatively
short sentences - for violence at the Diaz school will not spend
a day in prison and may find a way to avoid paying the costs
of the trial and damages to the victims. Nor will they be made
to pay back the wages earned from the high-level posts they have
been promoted to over the last eleven years, and there will be
no punishment for the police authorities and governments that
have protected and even aided them through some surprising career
advances even though they were being prosecuted for serious crimes
(although the Italian penal code does not yet provide for the
crime of torture and, hence, it is treated as simple "blows
and injuries", which entails the statute of limitations
intervening for the very light sentences that are envisaged for
this kind of offence). The only punishment of note is that these
officers will be prohibited from exercising any public function
for five years, which has forced them to resign - for some of
them, the direction of departments of the secret services and
of special units of the state police.
4) Instead, the ten demonstrators, the only ones charged for
all the "devastation and looting" that occurred (some
of them even confessed, but they were not part of the black bloc)
were sentenced very heavily (to between six and ten, and even
fourteen years). Such sentences are seldom issued to people who
are guilty of murder or other very serious crimes, while the
demonstrators were only accused of breaking shop windows, attacking
cash dispensers (unsuccessfully) and committing other acts of
so-called vandalism, but without ever placing anyone in danger,
nor attacking any police officers.
The aim of this judicial strategy was therefore to issue exemplary
sentences, probably wished for by almost all of the state authorities
and parliament (from both the left and right) led by those who
are notoriously close to the police forces. It seemed evident
that there is a will to confirm the logic of "zero tolerance"
that has been dominant for over 20 years, all the more so as
the authorities fear an escalation of revolts due to the impoverishment
that the current management of the financial crisis is causing.
What happened at the Genoa G8 was not a trivial sequence of mistakes
and clumsy acts by police officers and a case of planned violence
by the black bloc or "anti-globalisation" protestors.
It was an attempt (previously held in check through years of
complaints by demonstrators) to test the militarised management
of public order. That is, it was a precise plan whose aim was,
by resorting to the most brutal violence and to set-ups, to smash
a protest that was becoming too popular and too global, and which
the great powers of the world were no longer willing to tolerate.
This is why around 300 people from the "black bloc"
were allowed to break things, with the police choosing not to
stop them straight away. The authorities were able to use these
acts of destruction (which, in any case, were rather symbolic)
to legitimate their own violence. It is worth noting that none
of the [convicted] demonstrators had a firearm or knife, that
nobody tried to attack or disarm the police officers, whereas
the latter did not hesitate to wade in and strike members of
the crowd or launch their armoured vehicles at high speed in
its direction. This is why all the police chiefs (except for
the few who showed their disagreement) were rewarded with promotions
that are hard to imagine in any other country, even those whose
façade is democratic. But in Italy it is possible to disregard
appearances (from fascism up until Berlusconi). Thus, arrogance,
cheek, and most of all the possibility of doing and undoing things
in accordance with what the stronger actor wants all prevail.
It is enough for some chiefs of the police forces, of military
forces and from other institutions to amass good relationships
of friendship/protection (even through the use of secret dossiers)
with several high-level personalities, including those from the
Vatican and the finance sector. In fact, after its fascist period,
Italy has never ceased to experience coup attempts, conspiracies
and murders that were also fostered by sections of the secret
services and of national and transnational powers, including
mafia syndicates.
It is not in the field of the fight against the mafias, terrorism,
corruption and the underground economy (which reaches 35% of
the GDP in Italy), nor for the strict defence of the res publica
(lit. "public thing"), that the police officials who
defended the honour of their colleagues responsible for enacting
the most cowardly violence and even acts of torture against the
anti-G8 demonstrators in Genoa learnt their job. They learnt
it during decades in which they acted in an entirely different
way from that prescribed since 2001 by the Council of Europe's
Committee of Ministers (the "European Code of Police Ethics",
ECPE, which has not yet been adopted in Italy - nor has it adopted
norms against torture).
If this has been possible in a country with a democratic constitution
it is because the parliamentary majorities and governments that
have succeeded each other, from the centre-left to the right,
have continued to cultivate relationships of complicity with
police and military hierarchies to cover up all sorts of matters
that swayed between legality and illegality. It was Giuliano
Amato, formerly [Italian Socialist Party leader] Bettino Craxi's
right-hand man, who chose De Gennaro as the chief of the state
police despite the fact that he was not the best qualified candidate;
and it was Luciano Violante, a senator at the time, and Massimo
D'Alema who forcefully supported this choice (today, MP Marco
Minniti, their disciple, is also head of the ICSA Foundation
- for security and defence research - that brings together all
sorts of representatives of the secret services, police and military
in its board of directors). After Mr. De Gennaro came to power
in the police, there was a proliferation of promotions of police
officials to the rank of prefetto (government envoy in charge
of security) and there was a progressive militarisation of all
the police forces - even of firefighters and local police forces,
because recruitment was reserved to those who had been volunteers
for three years in military missions in Somalia, Iraq, Kosovo,
Afghanistan, etc.
A final remark: it appears rather symbolic that over these last
20 years, cases of corruption, abuses, violence and other criminal
offences concerning police officers have increased to the point
where their rate can be estimated at around ten times that of
the male population aged between 18 and 65 years of age. Likewise,
the rate of MPs charged for the most diverse offences reaches
close to 30 times that of the male adult population. The Monti
government has promised strictness and a serious fight against
corruption and tax fraud. But are the Italian police forces (public
and private, national and local) in a position to fulfil these
goals? Or, rather, are they more zealous with the weak, demonstrators,
Roma people, immigrants, or even victims who are caught by torturers?
Who is going to deploy a real plan for a democratic clean-up
and rationalisation of these police forces, like the military
forces and the public administration in general, since the level
of the underground economy, of corruption and of tax fraud is
unparallelled in European countries? However, as has been shown
by numerous works of comparative research, Italy is the country
in which the cost of security - public and private - per citizen
is highest.
But this has only been useful for the business of certain companies
and the careers of certain personalities. The real insecurities
that strike the least protected sections of the population are
not countered. This is true of illegal or semi-illegal employment,
accidents in the workplace, pollution, the illegal disposal of
toxic waste and the damage caused by environmental mafias, whose
consequence is the spread of cancer. The economic crisis appears
to favour underground economies to the point that abuses of power
spread due to the growing erosion of the possibilities for political
action for a majority of the population. The asymmetry of power
that has been imposed during these last 20 years of neo-liberal
success (also within the ranks of the left) has assured impunity
for the police hierarchies as well as for most dominant actors
in every sector, while the possibility for the population to
defend itself has weakened. As stated by Boltanski, "one
would have to admit that the institutions are groundless and
that the power they exercise rests on an empty space. The cause
of critique is the cause of democracy".
(1) See the documentation and videos on the website http://www.processig8.org
as well as in the documentary "OP Genova 2001".
http://blogs.mediapart.fr/edition/les-invites-de-mediapart/article/180712/en-italie-une-justice-ambigue
Previous Statewatch coverage
Italy: Genoa G8 appeal, Diaz school raid high ranking police officers convicted on appeal, Statewatch news online, June 2010, available at:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/jun/03italy-genoa-g8-appeal.htm
Italy: G8 appeals: longer prison terms for demonstrators, more officers convicted, Statewatch news online, March 2010, http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/mar/08italy-genoa-g8-appeals.htm
Italy: Making sense of the Genoa G8 trials and aftermath, Statewatch, vol. 18 no. 4, October-December 2008, also available at: http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-77-genoa-aftermath.pdf
Genoa 19/21 July 2001: An Italian view of "public order policing" Italian style, Statewatch, vol. 11 nos 3/4, May-July 2001, also available at:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2002/jul/08genoa.htm
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