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Italy: Italian anarchists "Witch hunt"

01 January 1997

Ten Italian anarchists are currently facing conspiracy charges following a police raid in September of last year. Over fifty other people raided in a series of other raids carried out on the same day. The raids launched in connection with a bank robbery carried out by four other anarchists in 1991. None of those recently arrested have been charged with any involvement with the actual robbery - four people have already been tried and convicted. The raids were carried out on a conspiracy suspicion based on a "criminal enterprise" clause in Italian law.

The Italian police argue that there is an organisation (Organizzazione Rivoluzionaria Anarchica Insurezionalista, or Revolutionary Anarchist Insurrectionary Organisation) dedicated to the overthrow of the Italian state is being financed by bank robberies. They also claim that this organisation operates a two-tier structure with an inner layer of armed insurrectionists surrounded by an outer skin of co-thinkers operating as a respectable cover. Therefore anyone who is a supporter of the ORAI is a co-conspirator in any crime committed by any member of this organisation.

Italian anarchists, however, have denied the existence of this organisation (whose name is certainly clumsy enough to defy belief). The only evidence is that of the informer, an Iranian woman, whose evidence helped convict the four people who have already been sentenced in connection with the original robbery. The credibility of this informer has already been questioned. When cross-examined at the trial she failed to remember basic details about the bank robbery and contradicted herself in numerous points.

For further information contact "Action committee El Paso Occupato" Passo Buole 47 Torino 10127 Italy.s