DN Note: We have been informed by comrades in Italy that comrade Alfredo has only interrupted his hunger strike, that the isolation that is 41 bis prevents us knowing what his real motivations are at present.
About the constitutional court hearing on the convictions for anarchists Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino in the Scripta Manent trial (Rome, April 18, 2023)
A hearing was held today in the constitutional court on the case of Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino on charges of political massacre (art. 285 c. p.) within the Scripta Manent trial.
The current Cirielli law (year 2005, Berlusconi government) prevents mitigating factors from outweighing aggravating factors in the case of recidivism. In Alfredo Cospito’s case, in particular, this would have resulted in a certain sentence of hostile life imprisonment despite the fact that the action he and Anna are accused of did not cause any victims.
The court therefore found this provision unconstitutional. More, reading the terse press release that came out of the building, the court seems to have raised constitutionality doubts in general with respect to all those cases in which the fixed penalty is configured solely as life imprisonment.
Recall that Alfredo Cospito has been on hunger strike for almost 6 months precisely against 41 bis and hostile life imprisonment. A struggle for which his comrade is risking his life and during which he may already have suffered permanent neurological damage. A struggle that Alfredo has always reiterated is not just for himself, but for everyone, particularly in solidarity with anarchist, communist and revolutionary prisoners. Today’s decision will have consequences not only for the fate of our comrade, but is a blow, however circumscribed, to the institution of life imprisonment in this country.
In reiterating that we have no confidence in the institutions of the state, we know the arrogance and hypocrisy of these characters: without the comrade’s hunger strike and the international solidarity that has been expressed, we are certain that no such result would ever have been possible. The state would have tarred the prisoners and attempted to annihilate the movement.
A state vendetta is being carried out against Alfredo, which is meant to be a warning to anyone who continues to act, thus to fight with facts and not talk, against the current social order. Today’s day confirms this. That warning the anarchist movement was able to return to sender with determination and conscience. We await the next few hours to understand Alfredo’s decisions and for further comments.
The struggle continues.
Get Alfredo out of 41 bis!
Against 41 bis and hostile life imprisonment!
Solidarity with all anarchist, communist and revolutionary prisoners around the world!
[April 18, 2023]
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Anarchist Alfredo Cospito ‘interrupted’ his hunger strike undertaken since Oct. 20
On Wednesday, April 19, 2023, anarchist Alfredo Cospito interrupted the hunger strike he began 181 days earlier, on Oct. 20, 2022, inside the Bancali prison in Sardinia. The comrade, who is currently an inmate in the prison medicine ward of the San Paolo Hospital in Milan, had been on an all-out hunger strike for six months against the detention regime established by Article 41 bis of the Penitentiary Order (a regime to which he had been transferred on May 5, 2022) and against the hostile life sentence, which risked being the final sentence for the comrade at the end of the Scripta Manent trial.
The interruption of the hunger strike comes in the wake of the April 18 hearing in Rome at the Constitutional Court, which recognized the prevalence of mitigating circumstances vis-à-vis repeated recidivism in the case of all convictions for crimes whose fixed penalty is life imprisonment. This is the case of Alfredo, in that with the requalification (by the court of cassation, at the end of the Scripta Manent trial) of the charge inherent in the double explosive attack against the Caserma Allievi Carabinieri in Fossano on June 2, 2006, from “common massacre” (art. 422 c. p.) to “political massacre” (i.e., “massacre for the purpose of attacking the security of the state,” art. 285 c. p.), comrades Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino were facing a sentence of hostile life imprisonment and 27 years in prison, respectively, as requested by the Turin prosecutor’s office.
What has taken place in recent days is certainly not a “victory” for the rule of law or a “return” to the principles of the constitution, but rather a result achieved by the hunger strike and the international solidarity movement developed over the past 11 months.
By sentencing him to hostile life imprisonment and imposing 41 bis, the state intended to bury Alfredo Cospito in prison for life. Today, this intent, although the comrade remains held in 41 bis, has not been achieved by the state and its repressive apparatus.
In recent months, the comrade has risked his life and is continuing to risk it today in this new and delicate phase of slow recovery of the faculty to feed himself. The comrade has already experienced presumably permanent neurological damage, localized particularly in the peripheral nervous system (he has integrally lost feeling in one foot, the other foot has reduced feeling, and one hand has begun to give similar symptoms). The continuation of the hunger strike in the manner in which it has been conducted for long months objectively placed him-rather than in the immediate danger of sudden death, which would probably have been avoided by the monitoring to which he is subjected in the hospital-in the risk of a progressive and permanent decay of the physique, with more or less serious consequences consisting primarily in the further impairment of the nervous system.
In this hunger strike Alfredo has always reiterated that he has fought not only for himself, but for all prisoners in 41 bis and, moreover, to develop solidarity with anarchists, communists and revolutionary inmates around the world. And in these six months of the strike, solidarity with Alfredo has been expressed in prisons halfway around the world, primarily by fellow anarchists and revolutionary inmates who in Italy, France, Chile, Greece, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany have solidarized and struggled by undertaking hunger strikes in their turn, carrying out solidarity initiatives and fasts, and publishing statements and analyses. Finally, a solidarity that, particularly in Italy, other recluses-not only imprisoned anarchists and revolutionaries-also expressed in multiple forms.
The authoritarian turn, an expression of capitalism in its neoliberal configuration currently in crisis, has generated and will continue to generate strong repression against anarchists; a repression that-as we have observed in recent years-has spread to the exploited social components that suffer most from the social and ecological crisis. But the warning that the Italian state intended to give to the anarchist movement has been returned to sender with determination and consistency. In these six months of hunger strike, the isolation of Alfredo and all the imprisoned comrades was prevented. These long months have seen the expression of a movement of international revolutionary solidarity that-even before October 20 and, we are certain, even after this April 19-has been able and will be able to reaffirm the meaning and perspective of our ideas and practices. A movement that, having grown consistently since the beginning of the all-out hunger strike, while rejecting all assumptions of compromise, will continue to develop the consciousness of solidarity.
FORGETTING THE PRISONERS OF THE SOCIAL WAR MEANS FORGETTING THE WAR ITSELF: REVOLUTIONARY SOLIDARITY WITH ALFREDO COSPITO AND ALL IMPRISONED ANARCHISTS AND REVOLUTIONARIES.
April 20, 2023
PDF: L’anarchico Alfredo Cospito ha interrotto lo sciopero della fame intrapreso dal 20 ottobre.
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