Solidarity presence on the occasion of the appeal trial for Operation Diamante and presentation of the special issue of “Bezmotivny” (Genoa, Feb. 14, 2024) + Some considerations from the trial against Gianluca and Evelin
Solidarity presence at the appeal trial for Operation Diamante and presentation of the special issue of “Bezmotivny”
Genoa, Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Solidarity presence: 8:30 a.m., in front of the Genoa Court, Portoria Square.
On Feb. 14, the appeal hearing of the trial involving defendant anarchist comrade Gianluca, arrested in March 2022 and still under house arrest with all restrictions, will be held.
The first-instance trial had ended on July 5, 2023 with an acquittal for the comrade indicted in the same case and a sentence for Gianluca to four years and six months in prison (plus 15,000 euros fine) for “illegal possession of explosives” (Articles 1 and 2 of Law 895/67) and “attempted crime” (Article 56 c. p.).
Solidarity with the imprisoned and indicted comrades!
Debate: 5:30 p.m., at the documentation space ” Il Grimaldello,” Via della Maddalena 81/R.
Operation Scripta Manent (2016) and the subsequent trial (2017-’22) also involved 13 convictions for the publication of the latest edition of ” Croce Nera Anarchica ” and the management of some websites. Similarly, a number of subsequent operations involved revolutionary publications: operation Sibila (2021), aimed particularly against “Vetriolo,” and the more recent Scripta Scelera (2023), aimed at “dismantling” the fortnightly “Bezmotivny.” Beginning with the publication of the special issue of “Bezmotivny,” we discuss the reasons for these proceedings: the war policies of the Italian state, the warning it intends to give to the revolutionary movement, and the need for the state to strike at the theoretical-practical combination of anarchism.
To follow: aperitif benefit prisoners.
https://spazio-di-documentazione-il-grimaldello.noblogs.org/ – grimaldello@canaglie.org
PDF: Solidarity presence at the appeal trial for Operation Diamante and presentation of the special issue of “Bezmotivny” (in Italian)
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Some considerations from the trial against Gianluca and Evelin
On March 16, 2022, anarchists Gianluca and Evelin were arrested at the request of the Genoa DDAA for the “Diamante” investigation carried out jointly by the ROS of the Carabinieri and the DIGOS of the police. The comrades are being investigated for illegal possession of explosives (Articles 1 and 2 of Law 895/67), attempted crime (Article 56 of the Criminal Code), manufacture of explosive materials for the purpose of endangering public safety (Article 435 of the Criminal Code), all with the aggravating circumstance of the purpose of terrorism or subversion of the democratic order (Article 270 bis 1 of the Criminal Code). The GIP validated the arrests for all the crimes charged except the aggravating circumstance of the purpose of terrorism. At the end of March the comrades were transferred to restrictive house arrest, and following the review hearing on precautionary measures held on April 6 Evelin was released from prison, while restrictive house arrest was confirmed for Gianluca.
The trial at first instance begins on May 16, 2023, and ends on July 5 with the reading of the verdict. Evelin is acquitted and Gianluca sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison plus 15,000 euros in fines (requests by the prosecutor had been 5 years and 6 months plus 15,000 euros and 9 years and 6 months plus 30,000 euros, respectively). The appeal court hearing is set for Feb. 14 at the Genoa court.
The investigation began with the June 2021 discovery of explosive, electrical, and other devices in a forest in Liguria. Records show that the items were found by a man, later a witness at trial, who claimed to be motivated by the search for narcotics. This person went, accompanied by a friend, to report the discovery to the Carabinieri. The two cooperated by providing directions and descriptions to law enforcement, being suspected, intercepted, tailed by the same carabinieri, and finally cleared. Following the discovery, law enforcement installed photo and video traps in the area. On one occasion, a male figure will be photographed from behind in the vicinity of the discovery site, a person whom the ROS and Genoa DIGOS claim to recognize and identify. Comparisons by the Carabinieri RIS with the samples in the DNA databases were negative, as there appeared to be no DNA traces on the objects useful for identifying a specific person. During the same period, wiretaps and stalking were also conducted against a couple of companions frequented by the two suspects, as well as a furtive “sampling” of DNA through glasses used during a stop at a bar when one of these companions visited the defendants.
This proceeding-which was initially joined by the ROS and DIGOS by an additional investigation, “Tenaglia,” specifically concerning some arson attacks against mobile phone antenna-repeaters that took place around Genoa-was part of the broader offensive undertaken by the repressive forces of the state against anarchists and revolutionaries.
Without delving further into the aspects of the investigation and subsequent trial (for more details and reflections on the investigation in particular, we invite you to read the text “You will find us in our place, that in yours we do not know how to be. About the Diamante Investigation”), however, we would like to highlight a couple inherent in the links with other events and especially today’s social reality. First, the intention to define solidarity among anarchist comrades as an “element” useful in the determination of conviction. In the acts of the investigation, particular emphasis is given to the interruption of the PM’s indictment during the first degree of the Scripta Manent trial, on February 11, 2019, in the bunker room of the Vallette prison in Turin. For this episode against Gianluca, Evelin, and five other comrades, sentences of up to 1 year were subsequently handed down, while some 60 comrades and companions in total received travel orders of between one and three years from the municipality of Turin. In addition to this proceeding, the Sibilla operation (2021), by the Perugia prosecutor’s office and the ROS of the Carabinieri with the coordination of the DNAA (which merged there the acts of an earlier and more extensive investigation underway in Milan in the years 2016-’19), is defined as a further aggravating factor for Gianluca’s position. The operation was particularly directed against the anarchist newspaper “Vetriolo,” in whose pages anarchist theory was extensively addressed especially in its aspects inherent to the revolutionary perspective. The proceedings, which did not even reach the pre-trial stage, have, among other things, outcomes that are still enduring: together with the sentence of appeal of the Scripta Manent trial and subsequent orders of the court of surveillance of Rome and the court of cassation, it was employed in support of the transfer to the 41 bis regime for Alfredo Cospito.
A second relevant aspect that we would like to emphasize and that emerges from the records of the investigation is the use – by the Parma RIS and in general by the ROS – of terminologies and interpretations typical of the military training proper to NATO forces. Evidently, some “operator” of this military organization, between bombings on the heads of civilians, had time to make “literature” regarding the classifications, the nomenclatures to be used to define the various types of “improvised” devices, instructing the judicial police forces in particular on the definition of the so-called Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). We are certainly not shocked by this, yet this aspect is significant in order to delineate the “dynamics” peculiar to law enforcement in this country. If we have defined as policies of war those undertaken against the oppressed class – we refer to the economic maneuvers of the last executives, the caravan, the deaths at work, in prisons, at sea for which the state is responsible -, these same policies, taking shape in very precise directives even in the repressive field on the “home front,” are also made explicit in the activity of the “anti-terrorist” organs.
Recent events in Palestine and the Middle East stand as a testament to the undying warmongering and slaughterous ferocity of states and capital. International politics, the anti-proletarian directives implemented by governments without interruption, have nothing to do with morality and ethics. Our struggle, on the other hand, in its perennial need for consistency between the means employed and the ends to be pursued, expresses an irrepressible ethical tension. What moves us is the desire for integral freedom for every oppressed person, for a dignity that the state and capital are destroying. Faced with this struggle, with the initiative of revolutionaries, the state closes ranks and moves on. Hence the exemplary measures and “special” legislation, customarily invoked in times of peace in the face of possible upheaval and obsessively pursued in times of war, where the radical contradictions of the state and capitalist organism become most manifest.
Revolutionary solidarity and the development of an internationalist perspective against every state and all wars of the masters therefore remain of fundamental importance to us in facing today’s social reality. It is therefore in this perspective, that is, in the continuity of the struggle, that we find and reaffirm the profound meaning of solidarity with the imprisoned and indicted comrades.
[Received by e-mail and published at https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2024/02/03/presenza-solidale-in-occasione-del-processo-dappello-per-loperazione-diamante-e-presentazione-del-numero-speciale-di-bezmotivny-genova-14-febbraio-2024/]