Judge declines prosecution of anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito and 11 others for incitement and subversion
~ Sonia Muñoz Llort ~
A judge in Italy has declined to indict twelve anarchists associated with the insurrectionary magazine Vetriolo of various incitement and subversion charges. Alfredo Cospito and Michele Fabiani, along with ten others, faced terrorism enhancements on almost all the charges sought by the public prosecutor.
Cospito and his partner Anna Beniamino have been imprisoned for years, along with other comrades accused of clandestine action. In 2013 Cospito was sentenced to ten years and eight months in prison for having shot Roberto Adinolfi, a manager of engineering firm Ansaldo, in the leg. Being already in jail, in June 2006 he was also convicted of having set two explosive devices in front of a Carabinieri police training college in northern Italy.
In 2022 he was moved to the Bancali prison in Sardinia, and subject to a restrictive 41 bis regime of isolation, which human rights organisations have condemned as torture. This has led to a widespread campaign for his release and led him to launch a hunger strike in opposition.
The prosecution of Vetriolo magazine began in November 2023. However, at the hearing on 15 January the judge announced that the indictment sought by the public prosecutor in Perugia would not go forward.
During the hearing, the accused made spontaneous statements to clarify their positions on the entire case against them, as well as for the abolition of the 41 bis regime. Cospito warned that his disturbing prosecution as supposedly having a “top role” in an anarchist organisation “opens wide the gates of 41 bis to anyone who disturbs power”, describing the case as “fundamentally an attack on freedom of thought and of the press”.