Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano on Wednesday cancelled a meeting with the SAP police union after its members gave a standing five-minute ovation to three fellow officers who were convicted of killing an 18-year-old man during a routine stop in Ferrara in 2005.
"I revoke the appointment that I had given to the Union of Autonomous Police at the Interior Ministry in Rome on Tuesday," Alfano said.
"It was an unacceptable and extremely serious gesture," Alfano added.
The minister told public radio GR1 that the applause was "even more grave because it was done by men who represent the State and can not fail to acknowledge the meaning of a final judgement". "That applause did great damage to the police," Alfano added.
Italian Chief of Police Alessandro Pansa will meet the mother of the victim, Federico Aldrovandi, on Wednesday afternoon, Alfano said, adding that he hoped to be able to attend as well. Meanwhile the SAP Secretary Gianni Tonelli defended Tuesday's standing ovation calling the conviction a serious case of judicial error.
"The causes of Aldrovandi's death are very different" than those established by the sentence, Tonelli said. "The cause was not the police stop," Tonelli explained. "I consider the colleagues to have been convicted by judicial error, and we are looking for a revision of the trial," Tonelli explained.
Tonelli maintained that Alfano and his deputy minister were "victims of completely wrong information" and Aldrovandi's family had defended their case in the media more than in the court.
Tonelli added he was "sorry" if Aldrovandi's mother "suffers" for the applause, but "it is necessary not to confuse truth with pietism".
Judges in January 2013 upheld prison sentences of three years and six months for Paolo Forlani, Luca Pollastri and Enzo Pontani, who were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and use of excessive force in the beating death of Federico Aldrovandi during the night of September 25, 2005.
A fourth officer, Monica Segatto, was also convicted.
All four served just a few months of their sentences in the slaying of the young man, whom they stopped while he was walking home from a club.
Police justified their use of force by saying Aldrovandi attacked them while in an "evident state of agitation".
They beat him into unconsciousness, and first-aid attempts to save his life failed.
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