GENOA, COP CONFESSION: "IT'S ALL TRUE" (english) by max 2:36am Thu Jul 26 '01 (Modified on 8:46am Thu Jul 26 '01)

[en] finally, a breakthrough - from repubblica.it [it] finalmente, un varco - da repubblica.it [en] http://www.repubblica.it/online/politica/gottododici/pestaggi/pestaggi.html Genoa, a cop tells what happened in the Mobile Operative Group centre of the penitentiary The night of the beatings in Bolzaneto the Gom's (Gruppo Operativo Mobile) lager "Kicks, punches, insults: constitutional rights were suspended. And kept saying: "relax, we are covered" (Marco Preve reports) GENOA - A policeman from the Mobile Group of Bolzaneto, of whom Repubblica knows the name and rank but won't reveal any details for privacy reasons, tells of the G8 "chilean night". "Unfortunately it's all true. Even more. I still have in my nostrills the stench of those hours, that of the feaces of the arrested which weren't allowed to use the toilets. But that night started a week before, when about a hundred of agents came from the Operative Group centre of the penitentiary to Bolzaneto". It's the first of many hidden details of the dramatic G8's Saturday. Our interviewee confess "there's still so much fascism in the police force, there's the subculture of so many young easily influenced, and those of ours who that night applauded. But it was them, those from the penitentiary GOM that ahve done the butchering". And the systematic beatings at the school? "That's ours. There's who says it was a retortion, who instead that the order coming from Rome was precise: to arrest with any means. The raid has been done from the colleagues from the Rome department, the "celerini" from the capitol. And to direct them were the top level of SCO and NOCS (special police/army forces), not the Genoa central. It was pure folly. Both for the victims that for our image, and for risking a riots too. That night at the police central there was who sweared because if the news was to reach those 20 thousand abpout to leave from Brignole station, we'd have risk a riot". The transformation of Bolzaneto jail into a "lager" starts on Monday, with the arrival of the GOM, special department established in 1997 with an ex general of SISDE (italian secret service) as leader, who was already the author of tough intervention in the Opera jail. Once arrived - dressed with grey-green mimetics, the black multipocket jacket, handcuffs and batons, and the receivers attached to the shoulder - they take control of part of the building, which had been adapted as prison a couple of weeks before the summit for the arrests to be carried at the G8. The gym had been adapted as first recognition centre. All the arrested are brought here, who's got ID shows them, all are fingerprinted. Next to the gym, on the left, near the tennis camp, there's a small building that was the jail itself. There are two big rooms at the entrance. Here, from Saturday night untill late Sunday morning, resides the vice-director of the genovese DIGOS, with other cops from the office and a few carabinieri. "What happened in the school and carried on here at Bolzanetto was a suspension of human rights, a void of the Constitution. I tried to talk to colleagues and you know what they answered: we don't have to worry, because we are covered." That night. "the gate opened costantly - tells the cop - from the police vans those kids came out and got beaten up. They kept them standing against the walls. Once inside they threw them headfirst against the wall. They piss on some of them and beat them up if they didn't sing "faccetta nera" (a fascist hymn). A girl kept puking blood and the GOM stood watching. They threated girls of rape with the batons... there's no point in telling you what I already have read". And you, the others? "There weren't many of us. The main group was still at Genoa to control the red zone. Anyway some approved, some other intervened instead, like a DC who stopped the beatings saying "this is not your home". And there was who like me pheraps did very little, and now is ashamed". And if the GOM weren't there? "I don't think that butchering would have happened. Our director is tough but he's one of those old-fashioned, who have the cult of honour and knows how to educate his people, whe call him Rommel". Whatever happended to the democratic policemen? "We are still many - replies the cop - but today we are scared and ashamed". (26 July 2001)