Writer De Luca cleared of No-TAV 'crime instigation'

(ANSA) - Turin, October 19 - One of Italy's leading writers, Erri De Luca, was cleared Monday of instigating violence against a controversial new high-speed rail (TAV) link between Lyon and Turin.
    De Luca, 65, was acquitted by a Turin court of charges of fomenting crime by encouraging 'No-TAV' protestors to commit violent acts of sabotage.
    The judges ruled that "a crime was not committed" and the sentence was greeted by applause from members of the public present.
    De Luca was on trial for allegedly instigating crime by encouraging protestors, saying that "every action" against the project was legitimate in 2013.
    "An injustice has been averted," he said. "This court is an outpost of the near future".
    Earlier on Monday the writer had stood by his words in court.
    "I confirm my conviction that the so-called high-speed line should be hindered, prevented and sabotaged for the legitimate defence of the earth, air and water," De Luca said before the judges gave their verdict. De Luca, who is an ex-militant of the 1970s radical leftwing group Lotta Continua (Continuous Struggle), also bemoaned that he has not been defended by fellow writers in a case that he said has an impact for freedom of speech. Critics of the TAV project have highlighted its high cost and damage to the environment. France and Italy argue it will save money and help the environment in the long run by cutting down on automobile traffic. Anti-TAV activists have organized a series of protests against the high-speed rail link throughout Italy over the last few years, some of which included violent clashes with police, vandalism, threats and disruption of highway traffic.
    Neapolitan-born Erri (short for Enrico) De Luca, a translator, novelist and short-story writer who is also a sometime actor and screenwriter, worked as a blue collar at the Fiat factory in Turin and at Catania airport after leaving Lotta Continua. He also was a truck driver and a mason, working in job sites in Italy, France and Africa, and rode relief convoys in the former Yugoslavia during the war between 1993 and 1999.
    De Luca, who is is self-taught in several languages including ancient Hebrew, Swahili, Russian and Yiddish, has published more than 60 books, numerous collections of short stories and poems, translated in more than 30 languages.
    He appeared in a cameo role of a mechanic in the film L'isola, by Costanza Quadriglio. His debut as screenwriter and leading actor was in the short film Di là del vetro (Beyond the Glass), presented at The 2011 Venice Film Festival. Again, with The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars" directed by Sophia Loren's son Edoardo Ponti, he was screenwriter and actor. The short was on the short list for the Academy Awards 2013, and won the Tribeca Film Festival 2013. De Luca was on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 2003.
    Although he never stopped writing since he was 20, his first book was published when he was 39, in 1989: Non ora, non qui (Not now, not here). Many more books followed, best sellers in Italy, France and Israel, his work being translated and published in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, USA, Brazil, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Romania, Greece, Lithuania, and more. He has himself translated several books of the Bible into Italian like Exodus, Jonah, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, and explored various aspects of Judaism, as a non-believer.
    In France, he received the France Culture Prize in 1994 for Aceto, arcobaleno (Vinegar, Rainbow), the Laure Bataillon Award in 2002 for Tre cavalli (Three Horses) and, also in 2002, the Fémina Étranger for Montedidio, translated in English as God's Mountain. In 2010 he was given the German international literary Petrarca-Preis. In 2013 he received the European Prize for Literature.
    De Luca has written for several leading Italian newspapers including Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and his hometown daily Il Mattino.
    A reclusive character who lives in the countryside near Rome, De Luca is a passionate mountain climber.