AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, a former mayor of Genoa and leading opposition figure Antonio Di Pietro were among those to express concern yesterday about verdicts handed down in a trial of 29 police officers charged with having used unnecessary violence on protesters during the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001.
On Thursday night a court in Genoa found 13 lower-ranking policemen guilty of violent offences but absolved all the senior police officials.
The 2001 G8 summit was marked by the death of one protester, Carlo Giuliani, while 500 people were injured and 132 arrested after three days of violent street protests that caused an estimated €50 million in damage.
Even though nearly all the violence had been orchestrated by a small minority of anarchists, police provoked outrage by raiding the Diaz school, headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum, an umbrella body that brought together the mainstream peaceful anti-globalisation protest.
More than 150 policemen stormed the Diaz school on the night of Saturday July 21st, using an exaggerated level of violence against the protesters, most of whom were sleeping.
In the end, 28 of the 93 people in the school ended up in hospital, some with broken bones. A British citizen, Mark Covell, a volunteer with the Indymedia news network, was so badly beaten that he suffered eight broken ribs, a punctured lung and 10 broken teeth.
Italian prime minister, centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, had taken office for the second time just a month before the Genoa G8.
Former magistrate Mr Di Pietro, leader of the Italy of Values party, was just one of many who called for some form of public tribunal or parliamentary commission to look into the incidents.
"The policemen who raided the Diaz school . . . went there because they were sent and they did those things there because they felt themselves covered," he said.
Beppe Pericu, the Democratic Left mayor of Genoa during the G8, also called for a tribunal or parliamentary inquiry.
The Italian branch of Amnesty International said: "You have to ask yourself if a different verdict, establishing penal responsibility in the chain of command, would have been helped by different behaviour from the Italian authorities which in the last seven years have never wanted to contribute to the search for truth and justice".
Senior government figures expressed satisfaction with the verdict, with junior home office minister Alfredo Mantovano saying the verdict proved "there was no plot in Genoa", while centre-right leader in the senate, Maurizio Gasparri, said the verdict "underlined the transparency and credibility of the upper echelons of the Italian police forces".