Italian police accused of tricking G8 protesters

Six years after Italian police officers smashed their way into a Genoa school and beat up G8 summit demonstrators, prosecutors have presented evidence that those detained after the raid were tricked out of their right to contact families or embassies. Prosecutors in the trial of 29 policemen accused of assault on the night of July 21, 2001 allege that forms given to arrested demonstrators to sign were in Italian and waived the right to contact the outside world. One Briton, Nicola Doherty, was held for five days in a military barracks despite suffering a broken wrist from the beating she says she received at the school. "Nicola was forced to sign this form and did not know she had waived her right to contact the outside world while, outside, UK diplomats and her family were denied access," said Matt Foot, a British lawyer who is representing her in the trial of the policemen, which started in 2005. The trial adjourned for a summer recess on July 9 as another accusation emerged in the UK. Mark Covell, a UK journalist who went into a coma as a result of the beating he received outside the school, has alleged that photos supplied by the Italian police were doctored to put distance between his inert body and Francesco Gratteri, Italy's current anti-terrorism chief. "The photos purportedly show the bearded Gratteri 50 meters away from me," Covell said. "But it looks like the image of someone else who has had a beard electronically painted on him. In other frames you see the same man with no beard." Covell claims alternative footage shows Gratteri was actually standing beside him as police broke his teeth, ribs and fingers, and damaged his spine and lungs. "If we can use this footage we can show that Gratteri was close enough to stop the assault on myself and I therefore hope to start... proceedings against him in Italy." Italian police already face charges of planting molotov cocktails in the school to justify the raid, while Michelangelo Fournier, former deputy chief of Rome's flying squad, admitted last month that "harmless people" were beaten.