Some 28 people condemned of physical and mental abuse on peaceful protesters at the Bolzaneto police barracks at the 2001 Genoa G8 summit were ordered to pay the Italian State six million euros in damages on Friday.
The Genoa audit court found police, Carabinieri, penitentiary police and medical and health staff guilty of damaging the Italian State.
They included top anti-mafia prosecutor Alfonso Sabella, at the time of the abuse head of the Italian penitentiary inspectorate, and General Oronzo Doria, former Liguria area chief of the penitentiary police.
On October 26 the European Court of Human Rights said police brutality at the Bolzaneto barracks were acts of torture.
The ECHR condemned Italy for the actions of the police officers and also because the State did not carry out an effective investigation.
The judges awarded plaintiffs between 10,000 and 85,000 euros a head in damages.
Earlier last year, on June 22 the ECHR condemned Italy over a more infamous case of police brutality during the Genoa G8 in 2001 - a police raid described by Amnesty International as "the most serious suspension of democratic rights in a Western country since the Second World War".
The court said Italy's laws were inadequate to punish torture committed by the security forces in a ruling related to a night blitz at the Diaz school, which was being used as a billet for protesters.
The court also condemned Italy for not having adequately punished those responsible for what happened in Genoa.
In the night assault on the Diaz school, hundreds of police attacked about 100 activists and a few journalists, wounding 82 and seriously injuring 61 - three critically and one, British journalist Mark Covell, left in a coma with rib and spinal injuries.
Later, at the barracks in Bolzaneto, some 252 demonstrators rounded up at the Diaz and another school, the Pascali, were spat at, verbally and physically humiliated or threatened with rape while being held.
Officers planted evidence including two Molotov cocktails and hammers and knives from a nearby construction site to justify the Diaz raid, which was depicted in the 2012 hit film Diaz - Don't Clean Up This Blood.
Last April Italy admitted responsibility for police brutality at the Bolzaneto barracks and agreed to pay 45,000 euros each to six citizens for moral and material damages as well as court costs.
In clashes between police and demonstrators at the 2001 G8, one protester was shot dead while attacking a Carabinieri policeman with a fire extinguisher, shops and businesses were ransacked, and hundreds of people injured.
photo: the Bolzaneto barracks in Genoa
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
