Seven convictions upheld in Genoa G8 barracks brutality case

During the 2001 G8 one protester was shot dead while attacking a Carabinieri policeman, shops and businesses were ransacked, and hundreds of people injured in clashes between police and demonstrators. During a night raid by police at the Diaz school, which was being used by G8 protestors as sleeping quarters, three people were left comatose and 26 had to be taken to hospital. That attack by police gained headlines worldwide. Last year in a separate trial, the Cassation condemned police heads involved in the Diaz beatings, upholding the findings of a lower appeals court two years previously. In June 2010 top officers Francesco Guatteri and Giovanni Luperi were given four years in jail for the raid. Both had been cleared at the original trial in 2008. The head of the security police in Genoa at the time, Spartaco Mortola, also cleared at the original trial, was given three years eight months. Thirteen police agents convicted of brutality in 2008 saw their sentences raised from three to four years. Former Rome flying squad chief Vincenzo Canterini, the only higher ranking officer convicted in 2008, saw his jail term lengthened from four to five years in 2010. But many other police offices allegedly involved saw their cases timed out. The judges found that the senior officials ordered the raid, unlike the 2008 judges who ruled the police acted on their own without instructions from their superiors.