Neo-fascists acquitted in Milan bomb appeal
01 November 2002
On 27 September 2002 a Milan assizes court quashed the sentences of a number of neo-fascists including retired Colonel Amos Spiazzi and General Gianadelio Maletti, head of "D" Office (Special Affairs) of the former Italian secret service (SID), on appeal. Neo-fascists Carlo Maria Maggi, Francesco Neami and Giorgio Boffelli, as well as Spiazzi, were given life sentences on 11 March 2001 after they were found guilty of instigating, planning and assisting in an explosive attack outside Milan police headquarters on 17 May 1973 (see Statewatch vol 10 no 2, vol 11 no 3&4). The attack, in which four people were killed and scores injured, was carried out by Gianfranco Bertoli. General Maletti had received a 15-year sentence that he never served after fleeing to South Africa, where an Italian parliamentary commission travelled to hear his testimony on the so-called "years of lead". Another neo-fascist, Gilberto Cavallini, received a ten-year sentence which was not quashed because he did not file an appeal.
Gianfranco Bertoli, now deceased, admitted carrying out the attack and claimed that he was an anarchist acting on his own. He served over 25 years of a life sentence before dying last year on parole. The prosecution argued that Bertoli was a member of the secret services infiltrated in anarchist circles, who was manipulated by the neo-fascists of the Triveneto section of Ordine Nuovo (ON), and that the bombing was part of the "strategy of tension", but failed to convince the court. Prosecuting magistrates said that they will probably file an appeal before the Court of Cassation, the last possibility for appealing a sentence.
Another case in which neo-fascists from ON are under investigation, the 28 May 1974 bombing in Piazza della Loggia (Brescia) in which eight people died, saw the head of the Italian parliament's justice committee, Gaetano Pecorella, being notified on 21 August 2002 that he is under investigation for aiding and abetting Delfo Zorzi. Zorzi, a member ON, received a life sentence alongside Carlo Maria Maggi and Giancarlo Rognoni for a 1969 bombing in Piazza Fontana in Milan (see Statewatch vol 10 no 2; vol 11 no 3&4). He lives in Japan, having acquired Japanese citizenship, which makes his extradition unlikely as Japan does not extradite its nationals. Pecorella, Zorzi's lawyer, is accused of contacting former ON member Martino Siciliano to convince him to retract allegations against Zorzi in exchange for payment. Siciliano is a witness in relation to the Piazza Fontana, Milan police headquarters, and Piazza della Loggia bombings, and has retracted accusations in the past, as well as refusing to testify in the Piazza Fontana trial in September 2000, complaining that the money paid to collaboratori di giustizia (informers) was a "misery". Siciliano sent a letter retracting his accusations to Italian magistrates by fax from Colombia in April 2002, and was subsequently arrested in Brescia on 14 June 2002 for aiding and abetting Zorzi.
Repubblica 15.6.02, 22.8.02; il manifesto 15.6.02, 22-3.8.02.
ITALY
Moroccan beaten by football gang
A 31-year-old Moroccan, Kay Abdorhamane, was beaten with baseball bats and chains and kicked and punched by a five-strong gang in the Ostiense area of Rome on 13 October 2002. He spent several days in a coma in San Giacomo hospital due to a blow to the head. Five members of the Irriducibili, a Lazio football supporters gang (see Statewatch vol 12 no 5) were detained on charges of attempted murder with the aggravating circumstance of racism, and are currently under investigation. Four of the five have criminal records related to football violence. The police, who came to the scene following an emergency call that talked of a "manhunt", found iron bars, chains and the mobile phone of one of the accused, Stefano Celi, at the scene of the crime. More weapons, including baseball bats were found when a nearby Irriducibili clubhouse where Celi admitted having picked up the weapons be