So we are finally almost there: one of the four court cases around the events of july 2001 in Genoa has seen its first grade sentence, while other three are drawing to a close within the summer.
The court case against 25 people has seen people convicted to something like 110 years of jail, ranging from mere 6 months to 11 years per person. Nobody in sane mind would have expected otherwise, Genoa could not be left without someone to pay for it. But still people hoped for something different, for someone to speak up about the absurd decision of the court, or for people to take to the street again and defend their comrades. This has not happened.
As for the other court case against activists, the so called Cosenza court case, concerning 13 people accused of being part of a terrorist organization aimed at organizing demo and consequently riots, it is going to see its sentence on April 24th. The prosecutor asked for a total of 50 years of conviction basing the accusation on evidence that is simply ridiculous, or malicious someone would say, considering Carabinieri went around all of Italy before finding a prosecutor actually willing to give credit to their speculations.
Diaz court cases follows on, with the witnesses called to court by the police lawyers which should last until the end of March or so. After that, during the summer prosecutors and lawyers should spell out their statements and the judge should rule within autumn (or even august someone says). The feeling is that the court is perfectly conscious of the political weigth of the court case and that has already decided what will be its best conclusions. Unfortunately, as you may suppose, they are not what the historical truth of that night would demand. Probably the end will be a conviction for the riot cops hold responsible for the violence of their underlings, while all of the Big Heads will be saved hiding behind something like "lack of enough evidence". So the fact is acknowledged, but responsibilities forsaken. That's how it goes in the real world! Last but not least, we got the sentence for the Bolzaneto court case.
In the Bolzaneto barracks demonstrators were beaten up, threatened with violence and sexist remarcks, forced to sing fascist songs: in a word, they were tortured. But the italian penal code just doesn't provide for a law for torture cases: this crime just doesn't exist in Italy. So the torturers in uniform only got small charges compared to the ones the demonstrators got ( the highest charge is 5 years and 8 months).
If you recall what we already updated you about in our previous memo, in october 2007 you now have a full picture of the situation.
Keep following supportolegale.org for more info, or write to info@supportolegale.org