Italy warns of anarchist attacks on diplomatic missions

The Ital­ian gov­ern­ment has stepped up secu­ri­ty around its diplo­mat­ic mis­sions around the world fol­low­ing a “crescen­do ter­ror­ist attack” by an anar­chist net­work act­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with impris­oned Ital­ian extrem­ists, the for­eign min­is­ter said on Tues­day. announced to

For­eign Min­is­ter Anto­nio Tajani cit­ed near­ly a dozen attacks since late Novem­ber that have dam­aged Ital­ian diplo­mat­ic tar­gets in Argenti­na, Bolivia, Ger­many, Greece, Por­tu­gal, Spain and Switzer­land, from van­dal­ism to explo­sives. No one was injured.

“It is clear that there is inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty (among anar­chists), and there­fore attacks are being car­ried out against Italy, against Ital­ian insti­tu­tions around the world,” Tajani said. He added that secu­ri­ty at embassies, con­sulates and the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs was being strengthened.

Tajani said he believed the net­work had Ital­ians and anar­chists from oth­er coun­tries act­ing in con­cert. He not­ed graf­fi­ti in Cata­lan on the Ital­ian con­sulate build­ing in Barcelona.

The most seri­ous of these was the arson of two cars at the Ital­ian diplo­mat­ic res­i­dence in Athens in ear­ly Decem­ber, one of which was set on fire, Tajani said, destroy­ing the garage and a car near a gas pipe. The fail­ure of the sec­ond bomb he aimed at, he said, pre­vent­ed fur­ther incidents.

The bomb­ing and a series of protests, includ­ing those sched­uled in Madrid on Tues­day, are in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Alfre­do Cospi­to, who has been on hunger strike since Octo­ber in protest against harsh prison regimes for ter­ror­ists and the mafia. 

The 55-year-old mil­i­tant is serv­ing a 10-year sen­tence for shoot­ing a state-owned ener­gy exec­u­tive in the leg and 20 years for a series of dyna­mite bomb attacks in Italy.

Last spring, an appeals court in Turin tight­ened the con­di­tions of his con­fine­ment, includ­ing soli­tary con­fine­ment for all but one hour a day and severe restric­tions on vis­its from his fam­i­ly. It is a sys­tem imposed on inmates who are judged to be dan­ger­ous even from inside the prison.

Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Mat­teo Piante­do­gi said: “The fact of the attack rein­forces the need for the regime in Cospi­to’s case.”