We learn from the media that on the night of January 28, a telecommunications repeater located in Turin on Via Revigliasco (in a hilly area close to the city) was set on fire. According to various media reports, the fire – which occurred around 4:30 a.m. – resulted in the damage of about 2,000 meters of cables, interrupting service not only for some telephone companies but also for other companies, such as Iren (electricity and gas provider), and for some security systems that use the facility.
The inscription ” Out Alfredo Cospito from 41 bis” was left at the site, in reference to the anarchist comrade imprisoned in the Bancali prison, who has been on hunger strike for more than 100 days against the 41 bis regime (in which he has been imprisoned since May 5) and the hostile life sentence (which is likely to be the final sentence for the comrade at the end of the Scripta Manent trial, which has reached its last trial hearings). Currently, other than the writing found by the repressive forces, no claim or communication regarding the attack appears to have been released.
Update about the health condition of Alfredo Cospito on the 99th day of hunger strike (Italy, January 26, 2023)
With the publication of the following texts – an update circulated yesterday, January 26th, and two transcripts of as many radio speeches by the trusted doctor, dating back to January 26th and 19th – we provide an update on the current serious health condition of anarchist comrade Alfredo Cospito 100 days after the start of the hunger strike.
The attempted annihilation against Alfredo was ratified by the State in July and December last year, first (by the Court of Cassation) with the reclassification as ‘political massacre’ of a charge in the Scripta Manent trial, then (by the Court of Surveillance in Rome) with an order confirming his detention in 41 bis, the most afflictive detention regime in Italian prisons, to which Alfredo was transferred on May 5th.
In the face of this attempt at annihilation, it is of the utmost importance that the ideas, deeds, and contribution of the comrade are not forgotten, condemned to oblivion as desired by the repressive apparatuses with the Scripta Manent trial, Sibilla repressive operation, and the transfer to the 41 bis prison regime. To the isolation and censorship of the State and its prisons we oppose, today as yesterday, the tenacity and consistency of our ideas and practices.
“Allow me to say, with a modicum of pride, that my life (like the life of every anarchist worthy of the name) is characterised by the attempt to make theory and action coincide. To the servants of Power I say only one thing: you can keep me in jail for the rest of my life but resign yourself, you will not succeed in taking away my coherence and self-respect, let alone the pleasure and desire to fight you“.
(Alfredo Cospito, ‘About Sibilla Operation’, 2021)
An update on the current health condition: the comrade collapsed, the torturers took him to hospital and then returned him to 41 bis
Serious news is arriving from Bancali prison, where Alfredo Cospito has been on hunger strike for 99 days. Our comrade now moves around in a wheelchair, he has worrying microchemical values, he has serious thermoregulation problems, that is, he is getting colder and colder, he covers himself with many jumpers and several pairs of trousers.
Perhaps in order to warm himself up, he decided to take a shower last night, around 11:30 p.m.. There Alfredo allegedly collapsed, fell and broke his nose in a compound manner. In addition, due to low platelets, he allegedly started to lose a lot of blood from the wound. For these reasons he was rushed to the hospital in Sassari. After initial treatment, the murderers of the prison police took him back to prison.
Words of comrade Marcelo Villarroel from prison. From Chile to Italy –
A loud cry of insurrectional complicity for Alfredo Cóspito!!!
Alfredo Cóspito is an anarchist comrade from Turin imprisoned since September 2012 after the kneecapping of Roberto Adinolfi (on May 7), executive director of Italian nuclear company Ansaldo Nucleare. This act claimed by the “Olga” Cell Informal Anarchist Federation / International Revolutionary Front for which he was sentenced to 10 years and 8 months. He was also sentenced to 20 years (first degree), for the explosive attack on the Carabinieri training school in Fossano (Cuneo) on June 2, 2006, claimed by Terrible Anonymous Revolt – Informal Anarchist Federation, which provoked the state response through the operation “Scripta Manent”.
Alfredo has been an anarchist comrade in active praxis for decades. Always consistent with his anti-authoritarian projectuality, he has maintained several antagonistic initiatives for which, even though he has been in prison for more than 10 years, the Italian fascist state does not forgive him.
In May of this year he was transferred to the Bancali prison in Sardinia where he was locked up under the 41 bis extreme isolation regime.
This prison regime was the Italian state’s response in 1992 to the rising violence of the mafia.
Update about the health condition of Alfredo Cospito on the 71st day of hunger strike (Italy, December 29, 2022)
On December 29th, 71st day of the hunger strike to the bitter end against 41 bis and life imprisonment without possibility of parole, the antagonist radio station Radio Onda d’Urto broadcast a speech by the doctor who is regularly visiting anarchist comrade Alfredo Cospito, imprisoned in the Bancali prison in Sassari. We report a partial transcript of the speech and, at the end of the update, the recording of the broadcast (in italian language).
“[…] So, let’s consider that Alfredo is now 70 days into his hunger strike. He started from a weight of 115 kg and today he is at 84 kg. Surely he has a strong physique, he started from a fairly high weight so he has a better chance than others of being able to sustain this hunger strike. It is clear, however, that everything has an end at some point; in the sense that currently his haemato-chemical parameters are quite good, except for the fact that it is going down a bit with the electrolytes. Today he spoke to me about reducing his agony, in the sense that he wants to make it precipitate a little in order to shift the ground a little, a little more, so that he might eventually be transferred from 41 bis. I told him, however, that as far as potassium is concerned, which is part of the electrolytes, like sodium and chlorine, it is indispensable for contraction, especially for cardiac contraction – I am a cardiologist –, in fact, with the electrocardiogram that we did today there are alterations that are found in the ventricular recovery phase, and which show particular waves that result from potassium deficiency. Obviously I got a bit angry because, a few days ago, he stopped taking the supplements [extremely mild, light, which he has been taking for some time], so this is also the cause of the lowered potassium […]. He is a little convinced [to keep taking them, for a few more days] so he promised me that today and tomorrow, while waiting for the results of the tests [which are done about every four days], he will take the supplements. Then, as for the rest, psychologically he is in high spirits, smiling; a couple of days ago they moved him from his cell to another one, so he has air time with three other inmates, and this pleases him very much, because he talks to these other three inmates during air time. As a complexion then, in fact, he is a little better because he was very, very pale, but not pale because he was deficient in red blood cells; pale precisely because he was not taking light. And obviously the calcemia that he still has good is crumbling a little bit from the bones; somewhere, if you don’t take in food, the body subtracts and tries to help in some way. Let’s say that also as reasoning, as lucidity, he is fine; nothing to say about the answers he gives, they are not at all confused. He is reading, now and then he has a bit of blurred vision, he told me a bit of visual impairment, and that goes with the vitamin deficiency, of course. Every now and then, also because he wants to be conscious, he takes a little honey, which is a bit better than sugar […], when he was hypoglycaemic, they used to give him some sugar, but now he takes honey, so he doesn’t have these glycaemic drops any more. Then, for the rest, he is quite well; obviously he has lost a lot, a lot, a lot of weight, even since the first time I saw him, but nothing disastrous from the haemato-chemical analyses […]”.
In the face of the attempted annihilation of Alfredo, it is of the utmost importance that the ideas, deeds, and contribution of the comrade not be forgotten, condemned to oblivion as desired by the repressive apparatus of the state with the Scripta Manent trial, the Sibilla operation, and the transfer to the 41 bis regime.
The recent decree of the Court of Surveillance of Rome that confirms the detention in 41 bis is placed in the same perspective – the annihilation of the comrade – and is indicative of the reprisal that the state intends to give to the anarchist movement. Repression, convictions, decades of imprisonment, however, will not be enough nor can they ever lead to surrender: inevitably, our passion for freedom is stronger than any authority.
We continue the struggle with determination, we support all anarchist and revolutionary initiatives in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito who has been on hunger strike for over 70 days, with Ivan Alocco since December 22nd again on hunger strike alongside Alfredo, and with all imprisoned anarchists and revolutionaries.
The recording of the Radio Onda d’Urto broadcast (in italian language):
Letter – Intervention of the anarchist comrade from Sardinia Omar Nioi
(convicted in the trial of “Operation Scripta Manent”) at the event held in Athens (A.S.O.E.E.) on December 19, 2022 regarding the anarcho-nihilist hunger striker Alfredo Cospito.
Organization: Anarchist Hangout Nadir(Thessaloniki),
Translation project blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net,
Comrades.
The translation from Italian was done by the Counter-Information Group Radiofragmata.(radiofragmata.nostate.net)
First of all, a greeting to all the comrades who were present in this initiative, a greeting and a special thanks to the comrades who promoted it. To this day, the weaving of international relations, exchanges and comparisons continues, as in the past, to be an essential element and always a living part of revolutionary anarchism, in order to strengthen our intentions.
Scripta Manent: A political trial against 20 years of the history of revolutionary anarchism
The events:
At dawn on 6 September 2016, 32 comrades throughout the Italian State were awakened by the civil police (DIGOS). The result of the first part of the police operation called “Scripta Manent”, ordered by the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office through its investigator Roberto Maria Sparagna, is 15 suspects and 7 arrests. On the other hand, an eighth anarchist, in charge of the Anarchist Black Cross publishing project (now closed), is arrested after a house search against him in which batteries and an electrician’s manual were found. In addition to comrades Alfredo Cospito and Nicola Gai, already in prison since 2012 having been tried and convicted for the injury of Roberto Adinolfi, (CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare) action taken by “Nucleo Olga of FAI/FRI”, comrades Alessandro, Marco, Danilo, Valentina and Anna are arrested. For the comrades, articles 270 bis (on association with terrorist purposes), 280 bis (on terrorist acts with lethal or explosive devices) and 285 (on massacre) are triggered for various reasons, which are in question starting from as far back as 2003 and all relating to a series of attacks specifically signed by the “Informal Anarchist Federation” through the cells FAI/Narodnaya Volya (FAI/ People’s Will), “Cooperativa Artigiana Fuoco e Affini FAI/Collaboration of Fire and Artifacts (Occasionally Spectacular))”, “FAI/RAT ((Rivolta Anonima e Tremenda/Federazione Anarchica Informale – Anonymous and Tremendous Revolt/Informal Anarchist Federation)” and “Nucleo Olga FAI/FRI” (FAI/IRF Cell Olga).
Thus, there is the umpteenth investigation of the Informal Anarchist Federation, another attempt to fish in the darkness just to secure a salary, which between the period of investigation and trial, makes as many servants of the State as possible fatten their pockets. During the first months of this operation, the arrested comrades have been subjected to bans on meeting each other, censorship of correspondence, complete isolation and several transfers. In April 2017, the announcement of the closure of the investigation – for those arrested and under investigation in September 2016 – added, in addition to the crimes previously contested, to 12 of the 17 original accused to Article 414 of the Criminal Code (on incitement to commit a criminal act with terrorist purposes) as authors and/or distributors of the work of the Anarchist Black Cross, the newspaper and the blog, making explicit reference to certain opinion articles and other articles from No. 0 to No. 3. With regard to the offence of incitement to crime, the aggravating circumstance of “committing the act by means of computer and telematic tools” is also mentioned. Continue reading “Omar Nioi – Scripta Manent: a political trial against 20 years of history of revolutionary anarchism”→
In May of this year, the anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito was transferred to the 41bis isolation regime. The torture method of sensory deprivation aims to break his rebellious spirit and silence him. In order to obtain the removal of his isolation conditions, our comrade started an unlimited hunger strike on October 20. On December 1st – on the 42nd day of the hunger strike – a review of the conditions of detention decided to continue the torture procedure. If the Italian fascist state persists in its practice of isolation, Alfredo may not see the end of this year. But his death will not be a suicide: it will be the murder under torture of a vengeful political justice.
Let’s prevent this murder
The most passionate form of revolutionary solidarity is to continue the struggles for which our compasses are behind bars. It was in this spirit that on December 11, during a night-time sabotage action, we went to a pylon of the Fessenheim-Paris EHV line and unscrewed the bolts. The pylon is still standing, but its statics are clearly compromised. Let our revolutionary anger act in alliance with nature, and let a winter storm do the rest!
Alfredo has always been able to link the question of social revolution with that of ecology and, through his words and deeds, connect the ecocidal plundering of our planet with the struggle against the dominant powers, exploitation and oppression. In his statement on the shooting in the knee of the Italian nuclear industry leader Roberto Adinolfi (ansaldo nucleare) and later in various statements of the procè in the Scripta Manent case, he described the need to anchor a revolutionary perspective in the anti-nuclear movement. In a valuable contribution to the debate, he also spoke in 2018 about the struggle against the CIGÉO project for the burial of nuclear waste in the French village of Bure in the Meuse. Referring to the idea of diversity of tactics practiced there, he suggests an intensification of the forms of struggle chosen. This is one of the contributions that were later used to justify the hardening of his detention conditions. Continue reading “Grand Est, France: Attack on nuclear infrastructure in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito”→
We learn from the media that on December 18, in Rome’s Appio Latino neighborhood, shortly after midnight unknown persons damaged a number of banking facilities, including a post office-specifically, at least one postamat was set on fire and some glass windows were smashed-by spilling into the street and also setting fire to some garbage cans. According to media reports, the damage and fires occurred, very quickly, between Macedonia Street, Via Latina and Roselle Square. Murals were left on some of the buildings: “Alfredo libero,” “No 41 bis,” in reference to Alfredo Cospito, an imprisoned anarchist on an all-out hunger strike against the 41 bis prison regime (in which he has been imprisoned since May 5) and the hostile life sentence (which is likely to be the final sentence for the comrade at the end of the Scripta Manent trial, which has reached its last trial hearings).
The repressive forces, which arrived shortly after the events, were unable to stop anyone as the unknown persons had already left the area.
Update on the December 5 hearing on the recalculation of sentences against anarchists Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino as part of the Scripta Manent trial
On December 5, the second appeal hearing of the Scripta Manent trial against comrades Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino was held. The general prosecutor asked for 27 years and one month for Anna and life imprisonment without parole with 12 months of daytime solitary confinement for Alfredo, going even further than prosecutor Sparagna’s previous requests, which were 30 years for Alfredo.
The Turin appeals court failed to pronounce the sentence and turned to the Constitutional Court: the Turin judges are asking whether it is legitimate to be forced to disallow mitigating circumstances for Alfredo Cospito because of his previous penal background. Indeed, this would force them to sentence Alfredo to life in prison, although for an action that caused neither deaths nor injuries.
Next December 19 there will be a new hearing in Turin, a formal hearing aimed at working out the question to submit to the Constitutional Court.
Alfredo and Anna intervened with spontaneous statements. Alfredo reiterated that he will continue his hunger strike until his last breath against 41 bis and life imprisonment without possibility of parole, Anna remarked that anyone with a modicum of critical thinking will know how to identify the principals and perpetrators of his comrade’s annihilation. The people in solidarity in the courtroom greeted the accused comrades with slogans and applause.
Shortly afterwards, a demonstration set off through the streets of Turin that, despite the massive deployment of repressive forces, managed to approach the city center, passing through some of the city’s neighborhoods.
Get Alfredo out of 41 bis.
To end 41 bis and life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
Free them all!
Anna Beniamino’s declaration read out at the appeal trial for the recalculation of the sentences related to the Scripta Manent trial (Turin, Italy, December 5, 2022)
This is a political trial, which has aimed from the outset at the administration of exemplary punishment, a trial of our anarchist identities rather than deeds, a trial of those who do not renounce their ideas.
A massacre without a massacre attributed without evidence is the culmination of a growing commitment of Antiterrorism and Prosecution to exorcise the spectre of anarchism of action.
The imposition of the 41 bis regime to Alfredo Cospito, guilty of engaging in relations with the anarchist movement from the prison, is in the same vein. The hunger strike to the end that the comrade has been conducting since October 20th is the last resort against isolation and sensory, physical, psychic deprivation, against a political gag. A gag that even prevented him from reading the reasons for the strike itself.
41 bis is the extreme degree of doggedness of differentiated regimes: prisons where continual solitary confinement and the overcrowding of the common sections are the two faces of a system aimed at annihilating the individual. Prisons where massacres, real ones, have occurred and continue to occur: in the suppression of the 2020 uprisings, in the incessant suicides, in the treatment of the poorest and most fragile of prisoners as ‘residual material’ of the dominant techno-capitalist society.
If anything happens to Alfredo Cospito, any individual doted with critical thought will understand who the instigators and executors of his physical annihilation are, having failed to make the political and ideal one. I am aware that I am hostage of a system that is hiding its political, economic, social and environmental collapse behind the fetish of ‘security’ and ‘terrorism’.
It is necessary to oppose this. You can destroy people’s lives, you will not succeed in extinguishing anti-authoritarian thinking and practices. You will not succeed in breaking revolutionary tension, you will not succeed in extinguishing anarchy.
