ROS [Carabinieri Special Operations]

Italy: Updates on the Genoa trial of Gianluca and Evelin

Posted on 2023/04/28 by darknights

Updates on the Genoa trial of Gianluca and Evelin

UPDATES on the GENOA TRIAL of GIANLUCA and EVELIN.

The undoubted crisis that the capitalist mode of production is going through today manifests itself in an economy that bases its wealth on war, on the robbery and plundering of the commodity-rich global south, and in the sharpening of the class struggle.

While it is true that capitalism continually seeks “alternative” solutions that will ensure its continuation, often succeeding in finding them and thus creating new pockets of profit for the market, it is also true that the resource crisis and especially today’s climate crisis will not grant alternatives to this parasitic presence for long.
The commodity crisis affects not only the production of secondary consumer goods in the technology, war and digital industries, but also primary resources such as water. This leads not only to a change in geopolitical arrangements, but also to internal conflicts between exploited and exploiters as the example of reservoirs in France or mining in Germany highlights. Objectively, even in Italy, beyond the obvious shortcomings of radical opposition initiatives, the “hunt for ore” or residual gas supplies are accentuating the extractive machine of ruthless multinationals that destroy territories to increase their profits, with the favor of state concessions.

But the crisis of production is a possible prospect today, which is why states are organizing in an attempt to assert their interests and prevent radical struggles and forms of internal guerrilla warfare.

Against this backdrop the authoritarian turn underway in Italy and elsewhere takes shape, which on the one hand is evident in the adoption of economic and “social” policies aimed at ever greater class exploitation, and on the other in the tightening of repression against political crimes.

In the last period the authoritarian turn taken by the state has clearly and heavily characterized the exclusively political reading of social events and struggles by entering even the judicial spheres. It has strongly conditioned the use of repression with the application of punitive instruments that remain an objective problem for political prisoners, such as 41 bis, hostility and crimes arbitrarily reinterpreted, reformulated and used in a vindictive way as massacre and associative crimes. Continue reading “Italy: Updates on the Genoa trial of Gianluca and Evelin” →

Italy: About the recent searches ordered by prosecutors of Rome and Massa as part of the investigations concerning some initiatives in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito (March 3 and 9, 2023)

Posted on 2023/03/12 by darknights

We publish in English two updates on recent investigations by the prosecutors of Massa (searches and precautionary measures of March 9th) and Rome (searches of March 3rd).

Searches and precautionary measures for the demonstration in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito and all revolutionary prisoners on September 10, 2022, in Marina di Carrara

Yesterday, March 9th, searches were carried out against three comrades in Crotone, Lecce and Spoleto. The three were also given the precautionary measure of being obliged to present themselves daily at the police station for facts dating back to last September in Carrara where, during a demonstration in solidarity with Alfredo, a Lega electoral stand was encountered. There are seven suspects in total, five for robbery, two for defacement and all seven for election campaign interruption.

Some of those under investigation

Searches in Rome and Umbria in connection with two initiatives in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike (March 3, 2023)

At dawn on March 3rd, a conspicuous number of agents of the repressive forces – including DIGOS of the state police and ROS of the Carabinieri, on a warrant from the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office in the person of the public prosecutor Francesco Dall’Olio, already responsible for other investigations against the anarchist movement – appeared at the doors of some homes in Rome and Umbria to carry out searches on eight anarchists, all under investigation in connection with two initiatives in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito held in Rome last November. In addition to carrying out house searches against the suspects, we learn that other comrades present in the same homes and, lastly, a space (Circolo Anarchico ‘La Faglia’, in Foligno) were also searched.

The charges against the suspects are ‘manufacture or possession of explosive materials’, ‘unannounced demonstration’ and ‘private violence’. The searches involved seizures inside the homes, especially of anarchist and revolutionary publications.

We publish the communiqué circulated on the morning of March 3rd and – in order to give an overview of the initiatives on which this new ‘incursion’ by the servants of the state focused – the text read during the interruption of the play at the Argentina Theatre on November 26th.

Searches in Rome and Umbria

Searches have been in progress since the morning of today, March 3rd, in Rome, Spoleto and Foligno against eight anarchist comrades, on charges relating to an initiative in front of the RAI headquarters in via Romagnoli in Rome on November 13rd (art. 435 of penal code and art. 18 TULPS) and the interruption of a play at Teatro Argentina, also in Rome, on the following November 26th (art. 610 of penal code). Both initiatives took place in the context of the mobilisation in solidarity with anarchist comrade Alfredo Cospito, on hunger strike against 41 bis prison regime and life imprisonment without possibility of parole since October 20th. Furthermore, in the context of the same repressive operation, anarchist space Circolo Anarchico ‘La Faglia’, in Foligno, is currently being searched.

Solidarity with the investigated and searched comrades.

Alfredo out from 41 bis! Solidarity with all imprisoned anarchists and revolutionaries! Continue reading “Italy: About the recent searches ordered by prosecutors of Rome and Massa as part of the investigations concerning some initiatives in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito (March 3 and 9, 2023)” →

Italy: Update on Operation Sibilla: hearing set for Alfredo Cospito and other comrades under investigation at Perugia review court

Posted on 2023/02/21 by darknights

On Feb. 13, the setting of the review hearing on precautionary measures was notified for comrades targeted for measures in the November 11, 2021 Sibilla repressive operation (including Alfredo Cospito, who has been on hunger strike for more than 120 days, and Gianluca, who is currently under house arrest in the Diamante investigation by the Genoa prosecutor’s office). The hearing is set for March 14 at the court in Perugia.

This second re-examination stemmed from the hearing held on June 22 in Rome at the court of cassation, which concluded by granting prosecutor Manuela Comodi’s request, thus annulling the previous order of the review court (which on Dec. 16, 2021 had resulted in the revocation of the precautionary measures). The court of cassation, in spite of what had been expressed by the attorney general (who had called for the rejection of the Perugian prosecutor’s appeal), had thus “exhumed” the investigation by annulling the revocation of the measures and ordering a new review hearing.

Operation Sibilla, carried out by the Carabinieri’s Special Operational Group and the Perugia prosecutor’s office under the coordination of the National Anti-Mafia and Counterterrorism Directorate, played a key role in the genesis and application of the 41 bis detention order for comrade Alfredo Cospito.

Eight comrades (including Alfredo himself), previously investigated by the ROS and the Milan Prosecutor’s Office in another case for 270 bis c. p. (subversive association for the purpose of terrorism and subversion of the democratic order) and 414 c. p. (incitement to commit a crime, with the aggravating factor of the purpose of terrorism) in connection with the editing, publication and distribution of the anarchist newspaper “Vetriolo,” had been the subject in September 2021, by the Perugia prosecutor’s office, of a request for precautionary measures in prison on the same charges, plus other charges for various reasons relating to additional articles, leaflets and documents, as well as wall writings and for one comrade to a damage to some Poste Italiane cars (Foligno, June 6, 2019) in solidarity with anarchist comrades on hunger strike over the closure of the High Security 2 section of the L’Aquila prison.

At the same time as this request for arrest, a three-month censure order on correspondence was ordered for comrade Alfredo Cospito, which was subsequently renewed several times. The reasons for this censure became clear only a couple of months later, when – with the November 11 operation – the Sibilla investigation “emerged” and PM Comodi’s original request was downgraded by the Judge for Preliminary Investigations. Thus, a new order established no longer eight arrests in prison but six precautionary measures in relation only to the charge of incitement to commit crimes with the aggravating factor of the purpose of terrorism: an arrest warrant for Alfredo Cospito (at the time imprisoned in Terni Prison); house arrest with all restrictions for a comrade from Spoleto; and an obligation to stay in the municipality of residence jointly with the obligation to sign three days a week for four comrades. In addition, other comrades turned out to be under investigation at large, countless searches were carried out, and two websites (roundrobin.info and malacoda.noblogs.org) were subjected to preventive seizure and blacked out (a practically unprecedented fact as far as the Italian-speaking anarchist movement is concerned), remaining unreachable to this day with conventional search engines. Continue reading “Italy: Update on Operation Sibilla: hearing set for Alfredo Cospito and other comrades under investigation at Perugia review court” →

Foligno, Italy: You bet we’ll remember, and how! About the 41 bis for Alfredo Cospito: Those who are responsible

Posted on 2023/02/16 by darknights

Source: Inferno Urbano

Via & translated by Act for freedom now!

Foligno: You bet we’ll remember, and how! About the 41 bis for Alfredo Cospito: Those who are responsible

YOU BET WE’LL REMEMBER, AND HOW!
ABOUT THE 41 BIS FOR ALFREDO COSPITO: THOSE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE

In recent days, a media campaign of mystification and lies has been going on around the hunger strike that Alfredo Cospito is carrying on to the last breath against life imprisonment without appeal and 41 bis. We’ve heard it all. The prime minister Giorgia Meloni, with her usual victimhood, went so far as to suspect conspiracies about the coincidence of the start of the hunger strike with the launching of her government.
Another lie circulating is the one about a phantom alliance between anarchists and the mafia, deduced from wiretaps between Alfredo and the only three people he is allowed to see in the prison yard. The State, which decided to lock an anarchist up in 41 bis for the first time, is now instrumentalising the fact that that anarchist speaks to the only human beings he can meet. Sociability groupings which, by the way, are decided centrally by the ministry in Rome! In truth, it was with the creation of the DNAA (Direzione Nazionale Antimafia e Antiterrorismo) that the State wanted to set up a war machine against revolutionary insurgency, a machine that had as its weapons the exceptional tools that hitherto only applied to the anti-mafia. We are witnessing a complete reversal of the facts: those who merged completely different realities into the bureaucracies of the judicial and penitentiary administration are now crying ‘bonding’.

Similarly, we are aghast when we hear again the president of the council Giorgia Meloni assert that she will not negotiate with anarchists. And not just because everyone in Italy knows that the State only negotiates with the mafia. Statements like these denote that those in government have completely lost touch with reality. It is the anarchists who, since time immemorial, have never wanted to deal with institutions.

Anarchists who, as is well known, have no leaders, no ambassadors, no recognised interlocutors. So they have nothing at all to negotiate about. Anarchist conflictuality does not arise from the instigation of a jailed ‘leader’ and is not moderated in exchange for the survival of a comrade held hostage by the executioners of repression. Our conflict arises from visceral class hatred fuelled every day, not by political sophistry, but by exploitation, blackmail, misery, and the injustices of this society. The 41 bis was intended to be a warning to anarchists, it was not! Continue reading “Foligno, Italy: You bet we’ll remember, and how! About the 41 bis for Alfredo Cospito: Those who are responsible” →

Genoa, Italy: Nat, Beppe and Robert also acquitted at appeal trial for Operation Prometeo

Posted on 2023/01/24 by darknights

Genoa Jan. 23 – Nat, Beppe and Robert were also acquitted on appeal for not having committed the act. The three comrades were arrested by Ros carabinieri in 2019 as part of Operation Prometeo, as they were believed to be the authors of package bombs sent in 2016 to two Turin magistrates and the director of the Dap in Rome.

The charge for Giuseppe Bruna, Robert Firozpoor and Natascia Savio was bombing.

According to the indictment, the three comrades allegedly sent the explosive packages, which were intercepted before they were delivered, to Turin prosecutors Roberto Maria Sparagna and Antonio Rinaudo, who were engaged in investigations into the anarchists, and to Santi Consolo, then director of the Dap in Rome. According to investigators, the comrades had met in Genoa and planned and assembled the parcel bombs. Framing them would be one of the envelopes on which a price tag from a Chinese goods store in the Ligurian capital had been left.

This morning outside the courthouse some 20 comrades organized a gathering in solidarity with Nat, Beppe and Robert and Alfredo Cospito. A number of banners were then hung in San Lorenzo Square.

Italy: Sibilla investigation and 41 bis to anarchist Alfredo Cospito – stance taken by some suspects

Posted on 2022/11/25 by darknights

The motivations of the Supreme Court inherent in the pre-trial detention of the Sibilla operation came out in these days. We briefly recall the facts. In September 2021, following years of investigations conducted by the commands of the Special Operational Grouping of the Carabinieri in Milan and Perugia, the arrest of seven comrades and a companion was requested by the Perugia prosecutor’s office. This order was partly rejected and downgraded by the judge for preliminary investigations. Thus, on Nov. 11, dozens of searches were carried out by the ROS of the Carabinieri, the Sibilla investigation concerning some 15 anarchists and anarchists was notified, and six precautionary measures were imposed in connection with the charge of incitement to commit a crime with the aggravating factor of the purpose of terrorism: a warrant of arrest in prison for Alfredo Cospito (at the time already imprisoned in the Terni jail); house arrest with all restrictions for an anarchist from Spoleto; finally, the obligation to stay in the municipality of residence jointly with the obligation to sign three days a week for four comrades. On the same day of the operation two websites, roundrobin.info and malacoda.noblogs.org, were also blacked out. During the search, all found copies of the anarchist newspaper “Vetriolo” and the books What International? and My Dear Master Tomorrow I’ll Shoot You published by Monte Bove Editions were seized.

Only five weeks later, the Perugia review court revoked the arrest order, essentially trashing the investigation. Against this ruling prosecutor Manuela Comodi appealed in Cassation, obtaining, against the same opinion of the Attorney General’s Office, the reinstatement of the investigation. With some delay, the reasons for this decision were received. Unfortunately, the dabbling in technicalities is this time necessary for the understanding of the acrobatic leaps with which the Italian judiciary is trying to hold up Operation Sibilla and with it probably the infamous decision to lock up our comrade Alfredo Cospito in 41bis. In fact, the Supreme Court found that there was a passage in the sentence of the Perugia freedom court in which the prosecution’s position was not sufficiently argued. This passage coincidentally concerns precisely an article by Alfredo in “Vetriolo,” later taken up in What International? Therefore, the judgment by which we were exonerated is annulled and a new review is ordered to more fully address the point at issue. This is therefore an open ruling that does not rule out a new “acquittal,” but merely calls for aspects that it deems controversial to be more clearly delineated.

We are taking the floor because we want to expose the political logic behind this matter. This investigation plays its part in the 41bis order against our comrade. By claiming that Alfredo “instigated” from prison to commit revolutionary actions, it constitutes a good reason to argue the need to prevent him from any communication with the outside world. We take it upon ourselves to firmly denounce what we believe happened. It is clear that the Supreme Court received appropriate solicitations that Operation Sibilla be kept alive, albeit in intensive care. A decision made over and above the Attorney General’s own requests, the delay in the motivations, the captiousness of them, all of this speaks to us of the need to keep standing, while grasping at straws, a specific charge of incitement against Alfredo.

On December 1, a hearing will be held to confirm or not confirm the application of 41bis against our comrade for the next four years. On that day, the state executioners will be able to appear in court waving this charge as well. Let it be clear, publicly, how shaky it actually is (postponement for lack of motivation of the annulment ruling on a single specific article published in an anarchist newspaper), but that it can become, along with others, one more reason to keep Alfredo in the regime of annihilation and thus to sentence him to death.

Alfredo, in fact, has waged a very tough struggle that leaves no room for judicial acrobatics. Faced with the prospect of spending a lifetime in 41bis, he preferred, with his usual consistency and determination, to put his life on the line in an all-out hunger strike. On the one hand, your byzantinisms with which you arrange investigations and jail, on the other, the proud and unequivocal linearity of anarchism. Just as the comrades and comrade who joined the hunger strike are demonstrating the deepest sense of the word solidarity. In our own small way, we too put our faces to it and promise that we will not leave in silence what you are doing.

Adriano, Federica, Francesco, Matteo, Michele, Paolo, Sara

Source: La Nemesi

Italy: An update and some considerations on Operation Sibilla and the 41 bis against anarchist Alfredo Cospito

Posted on 2022/06/25 - 2022/07/24 by darknights

A hearing on the precautionary measures ordered for the repressive Sibilla operation was held at the Court of Cassation in Rome on June 22. The hearing stemmed from an appeal by prosecutor Manuela Comodi against the order of the Perugia review court, which on Dec. 16 had resulted in the annulment of the precautionary measures taken on Nov. 11 in the repressive operation. The Court of Cassation, in spite of the opinion of the Attorney General’s Office (which had called for the rejection of the Perugia prosecutor’s appeal), granted PM Comodi’s request, annulling the order of the review court and ordering a new hearing. The precautionary measures are not effective, and a new review hearing will be ordered for the coming months at the Perugia court.

We would like to take the opportunity of this update to dwell on the reasons that led to the crackdown, adding some of our own considerations derived especially from the recent order to transfer Comrade Alfredo Cospito to a 41 bis detention regime.

In September 2021, following years of investigations conducted by the commands of the Special Operational Grouping of the Carabinieri in Milan and Perugia, eight prison arrests for as many anarchist comrades were requested by the Perugia prosecutor’s office. This order was partly rejected and downgraded by the judge for preliminary investigations. At the same time as this request for arrest, a three-month censure order on correspondence was ordered for comrade Alfredo Cospito, which was subsequently renewed several times.

Thus, on Nov. 11, dozens of searches were carried out by the ROS of the Carabinieri, the Sibilla investigation concerning some 15 comrades was notified, and six precautionary measures were imposed in connection with the charge of incitement to commit a crime with the aggravating factor of the purpose of terrorism: an arrest warrant in prison for Alfredo Cospito (at the time already imprisoned in the Terni jail); the arrest of comrade Michele Fabiani, who was placed under house arrest with all restrictions; and finally, the obligation to stay in the municipality of residence jointly with the obligation to sign three days a week for four comrades. On the very day of the operation, two websites (roundrobin.info and malacoda.noblogs.org) were also blacked out, making their online addresses untraceable, and at present they are still unreachable on Italian territory through conventional browsers (due to technical limitations, the repressive forces were able to order the blackout only in Italy, since it was not possible to completely eliminate the websites in question). As mentioned earlier, after a little over a month, the precautionary measures were all cancelled by the review court. Continue reading “Italy: An update and some considerations on Operation Sibilla and the 41 bis against anarchist Alfredo Cospito” →

Italy: You’ll find us in our place as we can’t stay in yours. On the “Diamante” investigation

Posted on 2022/06/25 - 2022/06/25 by darknights

You’ll find us in our place as we can’t stay in yours. On the “Diamante” investigation

At dawn on 16th March 2022 two anarchists were arrested in Rome by the DIGOS police and the ROS carabinieri on orders of the Power of Attorney of Genoa and Public Prosecutor Federico Manotti.

The charge is fabrication and possession of explosive material (article 1 and 2, bill 895/67) with the intent to attack public safety (article 435 of the penal code), all this with purposes of terrorism and subversion of the democratic order (article 270 bis 1) in collusion with other persons yet to be identified.

Alongside this investigation named “Diamante”, there is another open investigation named “Tenaglia” following incendiary sabotages on pylons, repeaters and server booths which occurred in 2021 in Liguria, and even episodes that happened many years ago, listed, even only formally, and mentioned in previous investigations and failed investigations by the same prosecutor in Genoa. This seems to be more like a strategy to exaggerate the repressive operation, given that there is little or nothing that concretely links these episodes to the reason for the arrest for possession of explosive material.

Obviously in the investigation there is the usual revisitation of significance and analyses often incoherent and botched, which intend to schematise the “trends” of the anarchist movement into “formations” and a superficial job of copy-and-paste on things already written in other anti-anarchist investigations, which we absolutely think are pointless to dwell on.

The investigation that led to the arrest started with the finding of explosive material, electrical material and other devices in a forest in Liguria in June 2021. In the papers of the investigation we read that containers were found by an unknown person who later declared he was looking for drugs, and who after the finding went to report it to the carabinieri together with a friend. The pair collaborated with the police and gave directions and descriptions, and were considered suspects, investigated, intercepted and shadowed by the same carabinieri they turned to, and were later exonerated.

After the finding of the containers, the carabinieri set up photo/video traps to “catch” anyone who went near the area. Subsequently a male person was photographed from behind near the spot, a person whom the police declared they recognized and had identified. Continue reading “Italy: You’ll find us in our place as we can’t stay in yours. On the “Diamante” investigation” →

Italy: Update about the comrades arrested on March 16th: Evelin also transferred to house arrest and coordinates of solidarity fund

Posted on 2022/04/08 by darknights

Evelin was transferred to house arrest in Rovereto on March 26th. Both she and Gianluca are subject to all restrictions (no communication with each other, no communication with persons other than close family members, no leaving the perimeter of the house even to buy food, no receiving correspondence, etc., and periodic checks by the police).

A solidarity fund has been set up to support the expenses of the two comrades (currently the fund is only active on italian territory). The coordinates for sending contributions are:

Postepay account number: 4023 6010 2286 1819
Tax code: BGNPPL79M18E472O

[Note: The comrades were arrested in Rome on March 16th. The investigation and the repressive operation are the result of a joint work between the ROS (“Special Operational Grouping” of carabinieri) and the DIGOS (“General Investigations and Special Operations Division”, political police), coordinated by the Genoa public prosecutor’s office. The two comrades are charged with “possession of deflagrant and explosive material, attempted manufacture of improvised explosive devices, as well as possession of deflagrant material with the aim of attacking public safety”, in conspiracy with unknown persons, in relation to the discovery by the repressive forces of explosive material in June 2021 in a wood near Genoa].

Italy: Update about the comrades arrested on March 16: Gianluca transferred to house arrest

Posted on 2022/03/26 by darknights

On Wednesday, March 16, two anarchist comrades, Evelin and Gianluca, were arrested in Rome. The investigation and the repressive operation are the result of a joint work between the ROS (“Special Operational Grouping” of carabinieri) and the DIGOS (“General Investigations and Special Operations Division”, political police), coordinated by the Genoa public prosecutor’s office. The two comrades are charged with “possession of deflagrant and explosive material, attempted manufacture of improvised explosive devices, as well as possession of deflagrant material with the aim of attacking public safety”, in conspiracy with unknown persons.

On March 23, Gianluca was transferred to house arrest. Currently (March 25), Evelin remains imprisoned in the women’s Rebibbia prison.

Revolutionary solidarity with Gianluca and Evelin and all imprisoned anarchists!

The address of the comrade:

Evelin Sterni
C. C. di Roma Rebibbia femminile
via Bartolo Longo 92
00156 Roma (Italy)