The police have tried to get the court case suspended on two counts.
Firstly the person (policeman?) who found the planted molotovs (petrol bombs) has been in what has been called a suspicious car crash and is in a coma (it's unclear if this is supposed to be the person who 'found' the molotovs inside the diaz school, the person who confessed to planting them, or the police officer who said he had found the two specific wine bottles on the street earlier, handed them in, but they disappeared...)
Also there was a move to request some kind of judicial review of one of the laws that the police are charged under.
The judiciary in charge however ordered the proceedings to continue.
The preliminary hearing began at around 9.30 a.m. The 29 police and officers are accused of a whole host of various offences including bodily harm, lying and slander in the inquiry into the brutal raid on the the night of July 21, 2001 at Diaz School, and the Genoa Social Forum / indymedia headquarters on the opposite side of the street. Of the 93 activists who were in the building that night, as many as 62 were taken to hospital for treatment following the attack by police, many carried out on stretchers and many with serious head injuries.
Some of the officers are very senior indeed and include Francesco Gratteri, former SCO head and current anti-terrorism chief, Gilberto Caldarozzi, second to Gratteri at the SCO and Gianni Luperi, head of UCIGOS.
Most of those arrested that night were taken to Bolzaneto detention centre where they were subjected to more beatings and torture - the trials of the police accused of these crimes will follow later in the year.
There are many international media present, including correspondants from the uk papers and TV networks, including the BBC.
More tomorrow.
See Pre-Trial Feature:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293115.html
Also see Indymedia Italy:
http://italy.indymedia.org
Firstly the person (policeman?) who found the planted molotovs (petrol bombs) has been in what has been called a suspicious car crash and is in a coma (it's unclear if this is supposed to be the person who 'found' the molotovs inside the diaz school, the person who confessed to planting them, or the police officer who said he had found the two specific wine bottles on the street earlier, handed them in, but they disappeared...)
Also there was a move to request some kind of judicial review of one of the laws that the police are charged under.
The judiciary in charge however ordered the proceedings to continue.
The preliminary hearing began at around 9.30 a.m. The 29 police and officers are accused of a whole host of various offences including bodily harm, lying and slander in the inquiry into the brutal raid on the the night of July 21, 2001 at Diaz School, and the Genoa Social Forum / indymedia headquarters on the opposite side of the street. Of the 93 activists who were in the building that night, as many as 62 were taken to hospital for treatment following the attack by police, many carried out on stretchers and many with serious head injuries.
Some of the officers are very senior indeed and include Francesco Gratteri, former SCO head and current anti-terrorism chief, Gilberto Caldarozzi, second to Gratteri at the SCO and Gianni Luperi, head of UCIGOS.
Most of those arrested that night were taken to Bolzaneto detention centre where they were subjected to more beatings and torture - the trials of the police accused of these crimes will follow later in the year.
There are many international media present, including correspondants from the uk papers and TV networks, including the BBC.
More tomorrow.
See Pre-Trial Feature:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293115.html Also see Indymedia Italy:
http://italy.indymedia.org
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Guardian Article Following Yesterday's Press Conference in Genoa
26.06.2004 19:07
John Hooper in Genoa
Saturday June 26, 2004
The Guardian
A group of 29 Italian police officers, including the country's anti-terror chief, go on trial in Genoa today in connection with a brutal attack on protesters at the 2001 G8 summit and an alleged plot to justify the violence using fabricated evidence.
About 200 police, revenue guards, prison officers and paramilitary carabinieri stor-med the makeshift head-quarters of the umbrella protest group, the Genoa Social Forum, on the night of July 21 and began hitting people - many of them in sleeping bags - with batons, breaking ribs, skulls and limbs .
The raid followed three days of violent clashes in Genoa between police and demonstrators in which one protester was shot dead by a carabinieri conscript and hundreds of officers were injured.
Police at first claimed they had been attacked from the Genoa Social Forum's headquarters in the Diaz school, and produced two Molotov cocktails as evidence. But prosecutors say the fire bombs were planted there by, among others, the deputy police commissioner of Rome.
Enrica Bartesaghi, the mother of one of those injured in the raid and head of a committee representing the victims, told a press conference in Genoa yesterday that of the 96 people inside the Diaz school, 62 had to be taken to hospital - three in a coma.
Richard Moth, a London social worker, yesterday recalled "screaming with the pain" as nurses in the hospital to which he was taken held him down while a doctor stitched his wounds without anaesthetic.
He said he was then moved to a detention camp, where he and others were further maltreated for several days.
Another 47 members of the security forces face trial in connection with abuses at the camp. Mr Moth is one of five Britons suing the police defendants in the Diaz school trial.
At yesterday's press conference, Richard Parry, a solicitor for two of the plaintiffs, criticised the British government's attitude.
"The victims have had no support from the government," he said.
None of the officers who carried out the beatings is to stand trial. All were masked at the time and have not been identified.
Green party and leftwing MPs have tabled a bill in the Italian parliament designed to require police to wear numbers while engaged in public order operations.
The unit commanders in-volved in the Diaz raid face charges of failing to prevent the violence, and a number of more senior officers, including the head of the anti-terror police, Francesco Gratteri, are accused of defamation or of making false allegations in the alleged plot to incriminate the victims.
The preliminary hearing - in which all the defendants are expected to deny the charges - has brought many of the back to Genoa for the first time since 2001.
Aitor Balbas, 33, a geologist from Pamplona, was one of a group of 11 Spaniards set upon in the Diaz school. Eight decided against returning, and two were still suffering from psychological problems, he said.
Lena Zuhlke, 27, a tree surgeon from Hamburg, was left with a broken leg and head injuries, a broken finger, two broken ribs and a punctured lung. Although her medical treatment has now finished, she still has breathing problems.
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