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
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