Two witnesses from the Tuscania Paratroopers Regiment took the stand today, both of whom had been sent to Genoa as emergency reserves.

Of particular interest was the testimony of the second witness, Major Antonio Frassinetto. Frassinetto, who was in charge of the Carabinieri Operations Center at the San Giuliano police barracks, was tasked with deploying officers in the Carabinieri's elite crowd control units, the CCIR. Questioned over the command structure of law enforcement during the summit, he explained that information was collated in the Genoa Police Headquarters, which would then send it to the crisis room. From here, it was telephoned through to the Carabinieri Operations Center, which in turn shared the information with Frassinetto.

Frassinetto was then tasked with communicating these movements to the CCIR. When doing this, he apparently felt no compunction about forcefully reminding CCIR units that "being on call for headquarters does not mean taking commands directly from officers on the streets". He also insisted that "headquarters can't make Carabinieri men follow their own plans". Yet at the same time, he felt able to assert that as "emergency reserves, the Tuscania Regiment was under the complete command of the Genoa police chief".

This approach not only created confusion in the communications chain, it also distributed potential responsibility for orders across different levels of the command structure. The CCIR units were consequently able to act completely autonomously.

Frassinetto also denied that any government figures had been present in the Carabinieri Operations Center - a reference to claims by numerous sources during and after the summit regarding the presence of Gianfranco Fini (then deputy premier, today foreign minister).

The first witness on the stand was Captain Luigi Odierna Viti, head of the fourth platoon of the Tuscania Regiment. Although able to provide detailed descriptions regarding his men's interventions, his powers of recollection apparently vanished when asked by the defense team to shed light on the end-of-day service report, which was written up by several people. Odierna Viti answered a string of questions surrounding its compilation with "I don't remember".

The third witness called today, Lieutenant Cristiano Spadano, was legitimately absent.

The next hearing has been set for Tuesday, March 8.