G8 Genoa 20 years later, Canterini: “A scar reopens”

20 years later, returning to the memory of the 2001 G8 in Genoa is no game for Vincenzo Canterini, the former commander of the Rome Mobile Department who broke into the Diaz school. Indeed, he tells AdnKronos, “it is a scar that reopens, which forces me to rethink the process, which lasted as long as it lasted”. For those facts, Canterini was sentenced to 3 years and 3 months. “I have always shouted from the rooftops my innocence and that of my men – he vents -, I found myself at the Diaz school because they sent me, but at that school, at the same time, 200 or 300 policemen with bibs arrived that I did not even know. The ‘Mexican butcher’ refers to them, to those agents who I never understood why they were there, we didn’t even know who they were. When I entered, last, and saw what was happening, and this is also evident from all the videos, I immediately pulled my men out of Diaz and moved them to the courtyard. The bewilderment is forever engraved in me and indignation at what we, together with Fournier, had to ascertain at our entrance, rescuing a girl seriously injured in the head. This is not the way to secure a place, that was the result of an outburst of someone not trained, throw in the arena without instructions and who unduly gave vent to the frustration of days “. “This is not – he continues – what the children of the seventh nucleus were instructed to. For this reason, for the clarity that had to be made, we immediately made ourselves available, giving, unique, the complete identification of all our participants in the operation. And for this we have placed ourselves at the disposal of the prosecutor of Genoa Lalla, even more than of the Corps, burdened by a blanket of embarrassment of which we have unfortunately been victims. But there is no worse deaf than those who do not want to hear. it is useless, we should only read the procedural documents “. Canterini is almost resigned when he says it, but then, in a decisive tone, he adds: “Look at the photos of my men in the days before Diaz, the ones in which they are portrayed rescuing the demonstrators on the ground with their gas masks. suddenly transforms from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. We were public order professionals, my men were chosen with strict psychological criteria, and they proved it in those days, before Diaz. They knew that a demonstrator on the ground cannot be touched , this was the criterion of my parents. How can you think that they were the ones to have done such a thing? “. Immediately afterwards, however, Canterini also focuses on an aspect that, over the years, has been forgotten: “Genoa in those days was set on fire – recalls the former commander of the Mobile Department -, and it was done with a preparation by the ‘antagonists’ that lasted months before Genoa, and we saw in the days of the revolt. They were very organized. The black blocs were actually born there. I remember the huge processions and the thousands of peaceful and quiet demonstrators, who but they involuntarily protected them “. Twenty years later, after his life was turned upside down by those events, Canterini, if he could meet the victims of Diaz, those dozens of people massacred in that school, would perhaps ask many things, but one in particular: “I would like that they would go back to those terrible minutes for a minute to remember if those who beat them to death wore the uniform or the bib, if it was us or it was others. This is what I would like to ask them. Because we are innocent “. Has justice not been done? “Forty-four years of police ended with a sentence of 3 years and 3 months. What could I answer?”.