Genoa, Italy – Benefit event in solidarity with the comrades accused in so called investigation ‘Replay’

 

From:radioazione. Translated by act for freedom now  Sunday 4th May from 7pm in Piazza Valoria Benefit dinner to support the comrades involved in the investigation named ‘Replay’, and accused of subversive association with purposes of terrorism. Proceeds will help cover legal expenses. A FEW WORDS ON FAILED OPERATION ‘REPLAY’ CARRIED OUT BY THE ROS AND PROSECUTOR MANOTTI IN GENOA It is since 2005 that the carabinieri ROS have been investigating a number of comrades from Genoa, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Piedmont, using phone tapping, shadowing and any other means offered by investigating technology, including DNA tests. The operation aims at individuating at all costs the members of an alleged Genoa Informal F.A.I. cell. The investigators have been trying to demonstrate the responsibility of this cell in the organization and realization of attacks carried out in northern Italy in the last ten years, attacks that were almost all claimed by different F.A.I. groups. Legal proceedings show the existence of three different lines of investigation (‘Kontro’, ‘Replay’, ‘Tortuga’) on subversive association (art.270bis) and attack with purposes of terrorism (art.280) involving eleven people. The first two investigations have been concluded, whereas that named ‘Tortuga’ is still under way and concerns a greater number of people. The operation practically refers to all the attacks occurred in central/northern Italy in the last years, attacks claimed by various F.A.I. groups, and other actions which were not claimed by F.A.I. The specific facts concerning this line of investigation are: - Explosive attacks on the carabinieri barracks of Genova Prà and Genova Voltri occurred on 1.3.2005; - The manufacture of explosive devices and their positioning at Parco Ducale in Parma, with the intent of striking the premises of carabinieri R.I.S. on 24.10.2005; -  The parcel bomb sent to Sergio Cofferati, at the time mayor of Bologna, on 3.11.2005; - The incendiary attack on a Red Cross vehicle occurred in Genoa on 26/6/2009 (this action was not claimed by F.A.I.). Ten years of phone tapping and police shadowing ordered by former prosecutor Canciani resulted in three investigating judges refusing to remand in custody the eleven investigated individuals. The second refusal dates 4th February 2014, and coincided with the conclusion of the investigation; but prosecutor Manotti, now in charge, decided to get his time of glory, and therefore presented an appeal concerning the last three specific facts listed above. On 28th February the eleven investigated individuals were raided and searched in coincidence with the end of the investigation, which is very unusual (one of the persons under investigation was being held in prison). On 24th March, for the third time, the court of review of Genoa refused to order the imprisonment of the investigated individuals due to inconsistency of the evidence. From 21 files made up of thousands of pages, the wastepaper of the investigation, the circumstantial evidence that emerges is only a string of official notes obviously drafted by the ROS: phone tapping concerning daily life events reinterpreted according to repressive purposes and totally out of context; shadowing leading to nothing; seizure of materials that anyone might have at home; thousand euros spent in equipment and technical counselling. In the context of this operation, the prosecutor of Genoa had also been allowed to conduct video and audio spying on Alfredo Cospito (imprisoned following the attack on Roberto Adinolfi, managing director of Ansaldo Nucleare) inside the AS2 unit of the prison of Alessandria first and Ferrara later, obviously against his will, and to get DNA samples to be compared with genetic traces allegedly found on the explosive device set against the RIS of Parma … the RIS being the most prolific DNA collector in Italy. In spite of the usual disgusting press reports boasting that the investigation had successfully established a compatibility between DNA samples, it resulted that the renowned DNA evidence didn’t produce the result the inquisitors had been wanting; what’s more, such evidence was not like the indisputable and irrefutable test that all of a sudden solves a case in detective films, but was rather a test of uncertain scientific validity whose result could be subjected to such a variety of interpretations as to be often considered not valid even for the purposes of the law. It is therefore clear that these tests have an intimidating motive rather than a judicial one; DNA examinations were repeatedly carried out without producing any significant result and with the only purpose of affecting the outcome of trials. They also demonstrate the existence of a DNA database set up already many years ago and concerning anarchists, revolutionaries and rebels constantly subjected to the attention of repressive bodies. In spite of everything, nothing has been demonstrated in ten years of investigation. Prosecutor Manotti even tried to present the ROS notes before the court, in such a pompous way as to suggest that something true must be there without any doubt; and he also promoted the necessity of a more elastic interpretation of the crime of association, as he claimed that the latter was still seen in an anachronistic way going back to highly structured armed/clandestine organizations. In this exciting carnival journalists played an important role, in particular in Genoa and Bologna. Once again they showed how investigations originate in carabinieri barracks and police stations, and subsequently find reverberation with newspapers and journalists, thus serving the investigators’ purposes. The reports published following the raids performed various functions: to give a sensational character to a poor investigation by depicting paradoxical and offensive portraits of the people involved, to launch provocations with the intent to watch the investigated people’s reactions and put them under pressure, to spread information on their private lives and more intimate relations. Regardless of the charges and the individuals involved in this operation, the aim of the latter is to isolate those who claim and spread the idea of direct action and attack on the existent in order to subvert it, and struggle against dominion not because they want to correct it in a democratic way but because they want to destroy it. We think that the only way to face this kind of repressive manoeuvres and oppose them is not to let them intimidate us, not to lose the determination of our ideas and actions, and to continue to practice and spread solidarity in the many ways suggested by our imagination and individual tensions. Investigated individuals and others in solidarity