independent: Italian police planted petrol bombs on G8 summit protesters
According to the UK Independent, an Italian police officer has admitted planting explosives to justify a raid on anti-globalisation protesters at the Genoa G8 summit last year. 80 officers are being investigated over accusations of torture, amid claims police deliberately fostered a violent campaign. Via Serial Deviant.
“I brought the Molotov cocktail to the Diaz school. I obeyed the order of one of my superiors,” the 25-year-old unnamed officer told prosecutors investigating the summit. The Molotov cocktails were planted in the school to justify the police raids on the school, he said.[...]
At the time, the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, insisted that the raids proved that the school held violent anarchists who had wrecked the city. The presence of Molotov cocktails has been held up by the police as justification for their raids on the school. They were shown off to journalists along with a nail bomb, two sledge-hammers and a pickaxe, also said to have been gathered at the scene.
[...]
There have been allegations that the police were well warned about the presence of specific violent elements among protesters but that these warnings were repeatedly ignored, leading to speculation that this was to allow officers free rein for violence.