<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>Here is the most recent english-language article I could find; I am assuming more will develop tomorrow. mjs
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<BR> The Guardian (London)
<BR>
<BR> June 22, 2002
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<BR>SECTION: Guardian Foreign Pages, Pg. 16
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<BR>LENGTH: 567 words
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<BR>HEADLINE: Police 'framed globalisation protesters'
<BR>
<BR>BYLINE: Rory Carroll in Rome
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<BR> BODY:
<BR> Italian police have been accused of fabricating evidence against
<BR>anti-globalisation protesters at last year's G8 summit in Genoa by planting
<BR>petrol bombs at their headquarters and falsely accusing them of stabbing a
<BR>police officer.
<BR>
<BR> According to a magistrates' investigation, the police improvised lies to
<BR>justify a bloodsoaked raid at the Diaz school, which was being used by
<BR>protesters as a headquarters. The raid, which left dozens injured after being
<BR>kicked, punched and beaten with batons, prompted an international outcry.
<BR>
<BR> It emerged this week that senior police officers have been placed under
<BR>investigation for allegedly making false statements as part of a cover-up.
<BR>
<BR> At a press conference the day after the July 21 raid the police presented an
<BR>array of weapons which they said were seized at the school and proved the
<BR>occupants were part of the violent Black Bloc anarchists who rioted during the
<BR>summit.
<BR>
<BR> Two petrol bombs were displayed as the most damning evidence and
<BR>prosecutors said all 93 occupants, including five Britons, could be charged with
<BR>conspiracy to bomb and jailed for five years if found guilty.
<BR>
<BR> Genoa magistrates investigating the raid now suspect the Molotov cocktails
<BR>had in fact been found by police in the centre of the city, seven hours before
<BR>the midnight raid.
<BR>
<BR> Earlier this month Pasquale Guaglione, a deputy police chief, told
<BR>investigators that his unit discovered two petrol bombs behind a bush on Via
<BR>Corso Italia, the scene of fierce rioting, and passed them on to a mobile patrol
<BR>to take back to the police station.
<BR>
<BR> Mr Guaglione said the labels on the wine bottles - a "Merlot" and a "Colli
<BR>Piacentini" - were the same as those sup posedly seized at the school. Genoa's
<BR>police station had no record of receiving the petrol bombs from the mobile
<BR>patrol - a unit from Rome which took part in that night's raid.
<BR>
<BR> A colleague based in Florence has supported Mr Guaglione's testimony but
<BR>yesterday a member of the Rome-based unit involved in the raid told the
<BR>magistrates that he had seen the petrol bombs at the school.
<BR>
<BR> The national chief of police, Gianni De Gennaro, appeared to endorse the
<BR>allegations of fabrication by saying any officer who lied would be fired. He
<BR>complained that the entire force should not be discredited by the behaviour of a
<BR>few individual officers.
<BR>
<BR> It also emerged this week that investigators no longer believe a police
<BR>officer who said a protester tried to stab him in the chest during the raid on
<BR>the school - a claim which was used last July to suggest the occupants were
<BR>violent and resisted arrest.
<BR>
<BR> The rip in his bulletproof jacket was not consistent with a knife and the
<BR>police officer may be charged with false testimony, according to investigators
<BR>quoted in Italian media reports. The Rome daily La Repubblica said a "fragile
<BR>mountain of lies" against the anti-globalisation movement was crumbling.
<BR>
<BR> The Group of Eight summit was the international debut of Italy's new prime
<BR>minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and police sealed off much of the city to keep
<BR>hundreds of thousands of protesters away from delegates including George Bush of
<BR>the US, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin of Russia.
<BR>
<BR> Street battles erupted when police baton-charged protesters who had been
<BR>infiltrated by the Black Bloc movement of violent anarchists, leaving Genoa a
<BR>smoking wreck and a rioter shot dead by police.
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