Genoa, 11th January 2006

Three witnesses testified during the 19th hearing in the trial into the raid on the Diaz School, speaking to a courtroom packed with Italian and foreign journalists.The first was Bill Hayton, the BBC journalist working in Genoa as an independent professional "as most of the BBC journalists were assigned to the Red Zone" and he believed it important to follow events linked to the anti-G8 demonstrations. He was summoned to the Media Centre of the Pascoli School by a colleague, Mark Covell, to view a film of Carlo Giuliani's murder. Hayton's testimony was punctuated by phone records of his calls to the BBC. There's a gap between 12:06 am and 12:44 am when the police, having also entered the Pascoli School, stopped him from using his phone for an interview. He was blocked as a police "hostage" for 40 minutes, and was only able to cross over to the opposite school once the police left, where he found the blood and destruction left by the raid.

Hamish Campbell was the second witness. A videomaker, he was also present at the Pascoli School at the moment of the raid. When the police arrived, Campbell immediately rushed to find a safe place for the video filmed up until that moment. He climbed up to the roof of the school, hid the reels, and started filming the raid. The video he shot is extremely important as it covers the police entry into the school, clearly showing there were no people at the windows, nor were dangerous objects being thrown. He also filmed Covell being beaten in front of the Pertini School gate immediately after police arrived. "He had fainted on the road and was beaten by officers passing by," Campbell recalled. "Nothing was happening around him. It was gratuitous violence."

The third and final witness testifying in the lengthy hearing (which ran until 6pm) was the New Zealander SB, arrested in the Pertini School and a co-plaintiff in the trial. His account confirms that of many witnesses before him. The police burst into the school, S heard shouting and noise. The police then climbed the stairs and arrived in the room where he was hiding together with two friends. They pulled him out and brutally beat him, before taking him to the Bolzaneto barracks.

Next hearing: January 19. Five witnesses are to testify, including the British journalist Mark Covell.