The True Tale of
The Diaz School Raid
by Alessandro Mantovani
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Responsibilities in the raid on the part of police head officers emerge clearly from the latest investigations and questions of the attorneys in Genoa. Rome riot police squad are responsible for 61 badly injured people, and the head officers are being hold responsible of providing false evidence and witness for the fake molotov cocktails bottles found in the Diaz school: they all risk to be kicked out of the police forces. Two vicequestori brought them to Caldarozzi and Luperi, vices of the Sco and of the anti-terrorism divisions. Gratteri, La Barbera and Murgolo were there but didn't notice anything. And behind the scenes of the "spy" and "Judas" we can see the shadow of the real head of the riot police corps, Valerio Donnini, the one who first organized the special riot police corps.
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They injured 61 persons that were sleeping, breaking open heads and smashing bodies without any remorse. They have counterfeited evidence, as the two famous fake molotov cocktails, to arrest 93 innocent people. And now the investigation on the Diaz school raid, that has brought the attorneys to interrogate even Gianni De Gennaro (head of the Italian police, ndt), delivers us this supercops who deny any evidence, changing version of the facts every second, trampling on the penal procedure laws, and passing over the responsibilities for what happened on the riot police squad led by Vincenzo Canterini as long as they can. No one of them has seen a tonfa being used. From Canterini to the prefect La Barbera, they all claim to have entered the school "afterwards", "in a retreating position", "among the last ones", "when the situation was already stable".
And it's incredible the behavior of some big name like Gianni Luperi, number two of the antiterrorism squad (former UCIGOS) and responsible during the g8 of the international police coordination room: in July Luperi refused to answer the attorneys, a right for private citizens but hardly an acceptable behavior for a police head officer that is to be shown by judges a video portraying him handing around a plastic bag with the two fake molotov cocktails in the courtyard of the Diaz school. The vicequestore who brought that bag to the school, the 37-years-old Pietro Troiani, who admitted the fact after the testimony of the former policeman, now key witness, Michele Burgio (34 years old), which nailed him to his responsibilities, refuses to meet face to face the person he has addressed as the one who took the two bottles from him, Massimiliano De Bernardini. The latter, 36 years old, is the same person who had to admit to have never faced the famous stone-throwing that supposedly and officially was the cause of the Diaz school raid on July 21st 2001.
And there is more to all this. The head officer of the Central Operations Service (Sco), Franco Gratteri, one of the most renowned policeman working in the struggle against mafia and De Gennaro "pupil", turns out as one who was there but was kind of sleeping, totally unaware of what was happening: it's all riot police fault, Gratteri said, spending time explaining the "mistake" he made sending a small squad in the media center in the school in front of the Diaz school (destroyed computers, stolen hard disks...) and trying to make up a possible story when he is shown in a video talking to Luperi with the plastic bag in his hands some meters away from his vice, Gilberto Caldarozzi.
It's better to know exactly what they told because no one can say at the moment were the main enquiry on 2001 G8 events will go. In Genoa is beginning the first step of the procedures and it's all internal to the tribunal. The attorneys Francesco Albini Cardona, Monica Parentini, Vittorio Ranieri Miniati, Francesco Pinto and Enrico Zucca have to protect their investigation from the main attorney Francesco Lalla, since the beginning the most "understanding" towards the police actions. Since it's not possible to detect individual responsibilities for the abuses, since all of them operated with their faces covered and hidden, the investigation for injuries and abuses will be passed to the art. 40 of the penal procedure code and which can be used to punish policeman who did not act to prevent an abuse. This possibility has precedents in the Italian law cases, but Lalla could try to undermine all the investigation by using a different interpretation. After all, the more or less one hundred people under investigation for the Diaz school raid would already be free of all charges if the fake molotov were not discovered and used to extend the charges on the head of the 13 people who filed the report on the arrest and the other people present during the operation (19 in total).
Donnini, the ghost "general"
Also in this case we have to start from the two molotov cocktails found in the afternoon during the riots in Corso Italia by the vicequestore Pasquale Guaglione, who afterwards declared to the attorneys to recognize them as the same one found in the Diaz school. From the interrogation report we know that Guaglione gave the bottles to Valerio Donnini, head officer of the Interior Ministry, former head of the Rome riot police before Canterini's age, true father of the riot corps. As a kind of honor to the memory of the old military school some policeman still calls him "general". During the G8, General Donnini had the role of "coordinating the mobile riot squad operations and logistics, as well as the air- and sea-borne squads and the special forces" (from the Interior Ministry order about g8 security). He was a sort of head of the heads, a sort of "ghost commander" as Il Manifesto called him on august 12th 2001, when for the first time his name came to light.
Guaglione stated that Donnini said: "I will take care of these, since they are important". The "general" denies all this, but admits to having put the bottles on the jeep he was moving with, along with his driver Brugio. The boy has then told of a impolite answer: "When Mr. Donnini came I pointed out that we still had the bottles in the back of the car, and he answered me very angrily and impolitely, as if I had asked a stupid question or something I should not have asked" says Brugio in his testimony on July 4th 2002. Donnini, the same day, has denied all of it: "I can say i never did such an ambiguous observation, and an observation born of a malicious prejudice, i.e. that I did not intended to bring the bottles to the police headquarters. It was Burgio's duty".
Burgio was a driver for a logistic structure. He drove around Donnini first and Troiani afterwards up to the Diaz school. On July 10th he confirmed: "I remember to have talked of the bottles to Mr. Donnini and he answered to me angrily and unpolitely." He further explained: "I was worried for the bottles. I could have brought them to the headquarters myself, but I have been trained to ask orders to the highest official in the car when I am working in a mobile squad. Having asked for orders to Mr. Donnini first and to Mr. Troiani afterwards and not having received any reply, I decided not to take any personal initiative". A personal initiative that will be taken by Troiani (alone ?).
Burgio the "witness", Troiani the "Traitor"
That night is Donnini himself who mobilize the riot squad for the "search", even if parteging [?] with other that unexplained use of the riot forces. The molotov cocktails are still on the jeep; Brugio only moved them in the back of the car. It's at this point that Troiani enters the scene, using the same driver because he is part of the same structure as Donnini (by the way being also Donnini grateful pupil). Troiani should not even be at the Diaz school. In the first documents, his name is not mentioned: it's Burgio who mentions him first. When he is questioned as a witness on July 1st 2002, Troiani denies at first, claiming that the bottles where found outside the school: "My driver Burgio gets near me and tells me that in the car or near the car have been found, by him or by someone else, two molotov cocktails. (...) I have brought them right away to Di Bernardini and went away.". Then when the attorney notes that this is "different from Di Bernardini declarations", Troiani adds: " I know. I told Di Bernardini that my men had found the bottles in the courtyard of the school or on the entrance staircase." The judge then stresses out that "in the report we find another version of the finding of the bottles", (it reports in the school, not outside of it, nda). Troiani at this point says: " I understand I am being imprecise; my problem was to get rid of those bottles", admitting candidly that the same Rome riot squad where Di Bernardini works, when came to give him the call as a witness, put him in contact with the colleague: "Mrs Manti gave me the telephone number of the colleague; she dialed the number for me. Then I talked with Burgio as well." At that point Troiani is under investigation and for the police he becomes the "Traitor": seems dedicated to him the report of Genoa DIGOS squad (political police) published in September 2002 with a picture of Giotto's Judas on the frontpage. Di Bernardini says he diverted Troiani directly to Caldarozzi without asking anything of the origins of the molotov cocktails. The two are former students in the same police course and seem to look for a joint version of the facts, with lots of phonecalls and sms. When Di Bernardini ask to meet Troiani, the latter refuses. And in any case the molotov bottles end up in Caldarozzi's hand for real, another big name who denied any responsibility and who after the video says: " I acknowledge that Troiani and Di Bernardini declarations are supported by the video evidence. I confirm that I don't remember to have handled the plastic bag."
The video nails the number 2s to the ground
Half an hour past midnight. The slaughter has been carried on. It's the moment filmed by Primocanale (in the judges' papers as Blue sky 1 and 2) and shown to the people being investigated on July 30th 2002. On the entrance of the school we see Luperi and Caldarozzi with a bag; some meters away there is the head of Genoa DIGOS division, Spartaco Mortola, as well as Canterini, Gratteri and Giovanni Murgolo, that was representing the prefect Ansoino Andreassi, who stayed behind in the Police Headquarters due to his "doubts" on the operation. Murgolo from the courtyard talks to him by phone. Both the nowadays number 2 of the Sisde (secret service, ndt) Andreassi and Bologna vice Murgolo are coming from the same school, the Communist Party anti-terrorism squad, while all the rest of the people involved comes from a riot police squad background (and De Gennaro). But among all these "fine heads" and expert investigators, no one worries about where does the molotov come from, that if are not blamed on anyone are only propaganda.
Murgolo anyway tries to get out of the thing in the cleanest way, as well as Gratteri and the prefect Arnaldo La Barbera, the former head of UCIGOS who died some months ago. They manage to setup a very miserable scene though. Gratteri has to say feebly: "I would not do that mistake again; I would not go again to the Diaz school". Far worse are Calderozzi, Luperi and Mortola positions: the latter is the one who carries on the overview of the place and who will start the operation, saying that the GSF had told him not to know who was in the school anymore. Heavy allegations for Filippo Ferri and Fabio Ciccimarra, the two young vicequestore pointed out by Di Bernardini and Mortola as the one who actually wrote the official report then signed by 13 people. Ferri, (born in the year 68) is the head of La Spezia mobile squad; Ciccimarra was leading the anti-robbery squad in Naples was the head of the police squad accused of the abuses carried on in Raniero barracks during the Global forum of march 14th 2001. They both tell that the charges for association aims at committing crimes were decided by them after the raid in the Police Headquarters, with all the other head officers, charging the responsibility of the molotov cocktails on all of the 93 persons. The judge and the tribunal will reject their report: the arrest won't be validated and the investigation will start from there.
Franco Gratteri accusation
Donnini was not at the Diaz school. The "general" is a witness, not one of the people investigated. Nonetheless it is quite scary the shadow he casts over all the operation, and even Gratteri seems to point his suggestion in this direction. On July 3rd 2002 he says to the judges: "To determine the chaos in the school could have been someone from the mobile squad or from other squads, as the episode of the simulated knife stabbing could have been used to justify the abuses towards some of the people squatting the place; I think that the molotov cocktail episode itself could have been arranged to justify what happened. I think it's important to determine who told Troiani to go to the school, insists Gratteri, since it is possible that h got involved in the operation with all the others and he tried afterwards to cover the facts. Many could have been the things carried on by a faction of the police I don't deem representative of all the police forces body.". This is the line for the heads of the police: it's all Canterini squad fault, the slaughter, the fake knife-stabbing, the molotov. And if Troiani, even not being part of the same squad, still defines himself as one of the squad ("we of the squad", says in a declaration), his head Donnini is the soul, memory and actual number 1 of the riot police.
A reaction to the "stone-throwing"?
Aside from the knife-stabbing of the policeman Massimo Nucera, that has to be further investigated from February 18th on, the attorney are evaluating the position of the different head officers. Considering the molotov cocktail episode, they have to prove that it was actually a planned action, and this is rarely easy to prove. Also because the fake evidence seems to have been conceived only after the operation, to cover the bloodshed.
On the contrary the search has been a planned operation since the beginning, drawing on a supposed "stone-throwing" episode against one of the mixed squads organized the 21st night by Caldarozzi following the order by Andreassi and Gratteri and in collaboration with Donnini. No one has spelled out the name of a single person who was victim of the stone-throwing. Not even Di Bernardini , that had written a first report as if he had been present to the episode and that then changed his version: "I don't know what to say; I reported what I had been told"; no one know who told him so. As if it was nothing everybody talks of the search as a "reaction" to the "stone-throwing". Even Gratteri says something about answering the "aggression". And from there to "retaliation" the step is very short, particularly for a "part" of the police forces body that the head of the Sco does not love.
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– Alessandro Mantovani, Il Manifesto, January 7, 2003
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