Italian Police Arrest Four Suspected Anarchists Near Pisa

Italian Police Arrest Four Suspected Anarchists Near Pisa

The following text was translated from the Italian news source "La Repubblica" on 09 June 2004:

The COR, the Revolutionary Offensive Cells, are increasingly coming into the sights of the public prosecutor's office. After the arrest on Monday [7 June] of a 21-year-old agricultural science student in Cascina [Pisa], charged with criminal conspiracy and preparing explosives, carabinieri in Pisa have arrested another four people, all members of an anarchist club known as "Il Silvestre." The foursome consists of two men, a 37-year-old Florentine and a 33-year-old Neapolitan, and two women, a 37-year-old from Modena, and a 23-year-old from Livorno. All are being charged with criminal conspiracy.

In the Navacchio farmhouse where the four lived, the carabinieri found a copy of the COR document that on 4 June was sent to the Livorno desk of the daily Il Tirreno and on 5 June to the Pisa desk of the daily La Nazione. The Offensive Revolutionary Offensive Cells appeared on the Tuscan scene in July 2003, and since then have penned their name to dozens of fires, attacks, and acts of intimidation.

They have targeted the headquarters, homes, and cars of AN [National Alliance] exponents and the construction site of a carabinieri police station in Navacchio. They have also sent cartridges and threats to various UIL [Italian Federation of Labor Unions] headquarters, the Italy of Values headquarters, the directors of Tuscan prisons, and a journalist.

Combining Marxist and insurrectionalist slogans in their communiques, surmounted by a five-pointed star, the language they use is aggressive. Some examples are: "Strike the hired killers of capital and its collaborators," "Support Simone,Roberto,Nadia, and all revolutionary prisoners with actions of armed propaganda," "Loaded guns," "With this message we intend to show you our determination to target your very person, home, automobile, place of work, and so on."

After the arrest of Perondi and after exponents of "Il Silvestre" were searched by the police, messages of solidarity and slogans such as "Support comrades targeted by law enforcement," "Support arrested comrades," and "Solidarity is a weapon" began appearing on a web site called Indymedia. There are even those who accuse the newspapers: "The claptrap published by the newspapers in recent months and the call for prompt law enforcement by all the city's political exponents have produced their results. We cannot accept comrades of ours being victims of the climate of hysteria created in Pisa by the mass media." No mention, however, of the frightful series of attacks. "Hopefully," says the Honorable Ermete Realacci [Olive Tree coalition member],"we can start putting an end to terrorist attacks in Pisa. In light of the investigations under way and assessments by the magistracy, we can only express our satisfaction with results stemming from the probes.


Events in Pisa over the past two years are too many and too close to the most dangerous brand of terrorism and must,therefore, not be underestimated.

Investigators have worked effectively and it is our hope that a way of nipping subversive activities in the bud has been found; activities that were becoming much less demonstrative, and increasingly more dangerous, and which, with the more recent attacks, even crossed the terrible threshhold of terrorism. Pisa is a city that has solid democratic traditions,and cannot tolerate having among its inhabitants those who behave like terrorists and sympathize with those who are violent.