G8 Genoa: European Court says no appeal to convicted policemen – Chronicle
(ANSA) – GENOA, 07 MAY – The European Court of Human Rights has declared inadmissible the appeal lodged by the police officers definitively condemned for the facts of the Diaz school relating to the 2001 G8 The policemen, who had been acquitted at first instance and then convicted on appeal and in the Supreme Court for forgery and slander. In the appeal, filed in 2013 when the sentence had become final, it was alleged that the sentence of the Court of Appeal of Genoa had violated Article 6 of the European Convention for Human Rights which establishes the “right of the accused to question or to have the witnesses against him questioned “and that to a” fair trial “.
In practice, the officials (mostly senior police officers then in service) complained that the first instance sentence had been overturned on appeal without hearing the witnesses. If the ECHR had accepted the appeals, the possibility of a review of the process 21 years after the facts would be open.
According to the European Court, the Court of Appeal was right not to resent the witnesses since the testimonies had not played a decisive role in either the acquittal or the sentence. The judges of first and second instance, remain the European colleagues, were constituted on documentary evidence and on the statements of some of the same police officers. According to the ECHR, the rule, which witnesses must be affected by, is not an automatism but depends on an evaluation by the judge on the relevance of the testimony. The police officers Gilberto Caldarozzi, Fabio Ciccimarra, Carlo Di Sarro, Filippo Ferri, Salvatore Gava, Francesco Gratteri, Giovanni Luperi, Massimo Mazzoni, Spartaco Mortola and Nando Dominici owed the appeal. Some of them, 21 years after the events, are now retired. (HANDLE).
REPRODUCTION RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
