Sentence of the Nottetempo appeal trial italy (9th December 2010)

On the appeal trial against the Lecce anarchists for so-called operation Nottetempo

As usually goes with the justice of the system, things turned badly for the comrades on trial: not only have some of the requests of the public prosecutor been accepted but those who had been acquitted in the first grade of the trial have also been charged.

The story is by now well known. Operation Nottetempo started in May 2005 when searches were carried out all over Italy and five comrades from Lecce were arrested and detained for almost two years in preventive arrest. The main reason for this judicial operation against anarchists was the tenacious struggle the comrades had undertaken against the notorious detention centre for immigrants Regina Pacis (which eventually closed down also thanks to that struggle), run by the church and situated in Salento (Lecce), the southernmost area of the Puglia region (southern Italy).

After a long series of hearings during which various squalid witnesses for the prosecutions gave vent to delirious declarations, the thesis that the comrades were part of a subversive association with the aim of terrorism had been rejected. However, due to strong pressures from the powerful local clergy and their political allies, four of the twelve accused had been charged with organised crime, two with specific crimes and the others had been acquitted. Unsatisfied with this result, which was insane in any case, public prosecutor Lino Giorgio Bruno presented a request for appeal as it was his intent to have the Lecce anarchists sentenced to subversive association. After all, it was the career of this ignominious servant of power that was at stake. He hoped he would become famous as the magistrate who finally managed to have anarchists condemned according to article 270 bis of the Italian penal code (subversive association with the aim of terrorism), a task many of his Italian colleagues had failed on numerous previous occasions.

Therefore, after a few years of postponements, the court of appeal has finally come to a new staggering conclusion: all the twelve anarchists originally accused have been sentenced to article 270 (without bis), i.e. subversive association without aim of terrorism. The heaviest charges have been inflicted to the four comrades condemned in the first grade, with one of them considered as the founder of the “association”, while the other two charged on that occasion have seen their sentence increased and the acquitted in the first trial have been given sentences ranging from one year to one year and eight months imprisonment. The court has also decided that all the accused are guilty of having instigated the imprisoned immigrants of Regina Pacis to committing crime, referring to two episodes when the immigrants had revolted and some had attempted to escape. It is therefore crystal clear that the real goal of this court is to condemn the struggle against Regina Pacis and, to a larger extent, any other struggle of this kind.

Waiting for the comrades involved to give us further details, we can just express our total disgust at this miserable public prosecutor, his repugnant associates in the local political scene and the shameful clergymen of Lecce.

It won’t be a court or any other servant of power to stop the exploited from revolting.

Fire to all prisons!!!

An accomplice of the accused anarchists