The defense: “After reading the indictment of the Attorney General Gaeta, we thought that the law could once again illuminate this dark affair. Tonight’s decision proves that we were wrong”
Alfredo Cospito rest at 41-bis. After two successive advances (initially the hearing was scheduled for April 20) the panel of the First Criminal Section of the Cassation met on Friday morning to decide on the case of the anarchist who has been on hunger strike for four months. The supreme judges have decided that the 55-year-old will remain detained in the manner prescribed by harsh prison regime, which implies a series of restrictive measures such as isolation, restrictions on the hour of air and communications. Upon hearing the news, Cospito announced to no longer wanting to take supplements and then said that he was convinced he would die soon. “I hope someone after me will continue the fight“, he added, according to what transpires from the penitentiary medicine department of the San Paolo hospital in Milan, where he has been hospitalized for a few days.
A garrison of anarchists was present all day in front of the judicial offices. “If Alfredo dies, we’ll make you pay. Our desire for freedom is stronger than your authority” and “let’s make our voice heard to this scum” some of the passages of the speech of those who took turns at the microphone of the garrison in Piazza Cavour. All the banners against 41 bis, life imprisonment and the “state torture“. A cordon of police officers was deployed in front of the steps, but there were never moments of tension or violence. At the news of the decision, the anarchists in the garrison, about thirty people, shouted: “Assassins, assassins”. The decision is also commented on as follows: “They sentenced him to death”.
The defence – Cospito, hospitalized in the San Paolo hospital in Milan which has a ward for prisoners, refuses therapy. His conditions remain critical even after he went back to taking salt and potassium supplements but, according to the defender, he was ready to go back to total fasting if the outcome of today’s trial was negative. “Reading the favorable opinions of the Dna, Dda, Dap sent to the Minister we understood that the ministerial decision had been political and not juridical. After reading pg Gaeta’s indictment, we thought that the law could once again illuminate this dark affair. This evening’s decision proves us wrong,” comments the lawyer Flavio Rossi Albertini.
The appeal – An appeal had been presented to the supreme judges by the lawyer after the “no” of the Surveillance Court to the complaint with which the criminal lawyer he asked for the annulment of the four-year harsh prison sentence. Cospito, 55, already definitively sentenced for having kicked an Ansaldo Nucleare executive in the legs, is awaiting the settlement of the judgment – the bis appeal is being held to re-determine the sentence – for the attack on the Carabinieri school of Fossano for which he is accused of the crime of political massacre, one of the most serious under the penal code. In May 2022, the Ministry of Justice had decided to apply hard prison, because there was a risk that the prisoner would send messages to “anarchist comrades” through sector magazines. Cospito went on hunger strike in October to challenge the harsh prison enforcement.
The position of the pg – The court was therefore called to decide whether to reject the application, reaffirming the hard prison sentence for the 55-year-old, cancel the Surveillance measure or send the documents back to Piazzale Clodio for a new evaluation. The latter hypothesis was solicited by the Attorney General, Peter Gaeta, which on 8 February filed its indictment arguing that the provision “is superseded by events”. According to the prosecutor, a “lack of factuality regarding the moments of connection” with the anarchists emerged from the Surveillance provision. “The verification on this essential point – the conviction of the pg- does not transpire in the reasons for the provision” but is “necessary” and cannot be “deduced entirely and solely neither from the top role” nor from his having become a ‘point of reference’ of anarchism due to his writings and the convictions reported”.
For his part, the lawyer had hoped “an annulment without postponement“. “The lengthening of the timing of the decision would make it incompatible with the health conditions of the detainee” according to Rossi Albertini who in his appeal to the stoats had argued “the fact that the Surveillance Court” has “equivalent the communicative activity corresponds to a violation of the law di Cospito (which is sent by him as a personal contribution to anarchist assemblies or newspapers, and which is then in turn equally publicly disclosed by the latter through the web, in well-known area or counter-information sites) to the so-called ‘pizzini’ , or cryptic messages that are conveyed by the detainee to the outside world, often through relatives, exploiting for this purpose the opportunities for infra-mural and external contact typically connected to an ordinary regime of detention”.
The reactions – “I don’t do any evaluations. It is a decision of the judiciary and the decisions of the judiciary must be respected” said the secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta, on the sidelines of the demonstration organized in via di Castro Pretorio on the occasion of the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “We’ll see the reasons, also because there was an opinion from the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation that went in the other direction. A decision that refers everything to the field of politics – he told beraking latest news Patrick Gonellapresident of Antigone – The Cassation moves on a profile of pure legitimacy of the provision, which however remains a measure of political discretion and I would add in this case also humanitarian. On the more strictly political-administrative question which is purely pertinent to the minister, we hope that also in the light of other opinions, he will be able to review his decision, also because the 41bis regime was born with other purposes and not to counter any type of crime”.
“The National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Turin, the head of the Prison Administration Department, have all expressed a favorable opinion for Alfredo Cospito to be transferred from the 41 bis regime to one of less afflictiveness and coerciveness, such as that high security with censorship. The same opinion had been argued with clear and irrefutable reasons by the prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Piero Gaeta. Nonetheless, the Court of Cassation rejected the anarchist militant’s appeal – he writes in a note Louis Manconipresident of A good right – We will read the reasons for the sentence but right now I can say that I find that we are facing a unfair verdict. With this, a situation that the governing class wanted to bring to the extreme consequences, through the political decisions of the Minister of Justice and through the construction of an enemy (the so-called anarchist danger), risks precipitating. And very quickly.”
“Sentences are not discussed, they must only be respected. You have to read the cards to be able to tell if the decision is right or not right,” he told beraking latest news Donato Capece, general secretary of Sappe, the autonomous union of the penitentiary police. “We are insiders – he adds -, therefore, for what belongs to us, we have the mobile operating group, exceptional young people who know how to enforce the law and the penitentiary system. Our Gom boys have now become security professionals, they know how they must behave to enforce the law. Ours is a difficult job, but we are always prepared for anything“. “Our position remains that linked to Cospito’s health conditions, with respect to which the persistence of the 41bis regime continues to have a completely afflictive character” said Riccardo Noury, Amnesty International spokesman in Italy.
The Bioethics Committee – Meanwhile, the National Bioethics Committee, meeting in plenary session, has decided to continue the analysis” with regard to the issues related to self-determination in receiving or not the health treatments offered” as the Committee itself states in a note, at the end of the debate relating to the questions posed by the Ministry of Justice. Cospito, through the lawyer, had sent a warning to be subjected to forced treatment in case of unconsciousness. “After a choral, in-depth debate, the Plenary decided to continue the analysis in order to obtain the maximum possible convergence with regard to the delicate and complex underlying problems, in compliance with all the positions that have emerged up to now”.