Askatasuna clashes, the prosecutor asks for four years for the first accused

Four years in prison: this is the first sentence request presented by the Turin prosecutor's office for the clashes that broke out in the Piedmontese capital on January 31st during a demonstration in support of the Askatasuna social centre.

The proposal concerns one of the demonstrators, a 22-year-old from the province of Grosseto who had been arrested within a few hours with the 'deferred flagrant' mechanism, and preceded the Digos blitz this morning by a few days, when sixteen of his companions were hit by as many precautionary and restrictive measures. An operation that received the applause of the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi: "Those who take to the streets only to practice violence should not delude themselves into escaping the law". "The State does not retreat", added his government colleague Paolo Zangrillo. The young man from Grosseto is tried using the abbreviated procedure.

The sentence is expected in a few weeks but the specter of a four-year sentence seems a foretaste of the severity with which the prosecutors intend to play the game. The 22-year-old is involved in the case of a policeman who was surrounded, knocked down and kicked and hammered: he did not commit any violent gestures, but was among the group of attackers. And the sixteen new suspects must answer, on a voluntary basis, for all the injuries suffered at different times by 103 law enforcement officers. It is not possible to establish which of them hit which, but the point is awareness: it was "foreseeable", according to the prosecutor's office, that the demonstration would not be peaceful. The same goes for the damage to cars, flower boxes, buildings, windows, bars, shops: the bill, presented to the entire group, exceeds 280 thousand euros.

The investigating judge Giulia Caveglia signed two custody orders in prison, seven under house arrest, seven including residence bans and signature obligations. The suspects are from various locations scattered across the provinces of Turin, Asti, Imperia, Cosenza, Novara, Florence, Reggio Emilia, Genoa and Cagliari. A sort of national network of antagonism, coordinated by the Askatasuna militants, who had met to protest against the eviction of the historic social center and give life, to quote the words of the investigating judge, to "a well-planned and organized urban guerrilla".

The images of the attacked policeman made the rounds in the media: the following day Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni went to visit the officer in hospital. But the most serious episode is considered to be the fire in a van from the fifth police mobile unit: "I couldn't get out - said the uniform driving - due to the constant throwing of objects and I was trapped between the smoke and the flames. A patrol from the financial police saved me at the last moment". Here we are being prosecuted for attempted murder: the suspect is a 28-year-old from Asti now in prison.