A French court on Friday rejected
Italy's extradition request for a former anti-capitalist
militant who has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for criminal
damage and affray during the riots that marred the Group of
Eight summit in Genoa in 2001.
The court of appeal in Lyon rejected the request by the Italian
judicial authorities to extradite Vincenzo Vecchi, an
'altermondialist' militant convicted in Italy for the violence
at the summit in the northern Italian port city.
The European arrest warrant was issued in 2016 so that Vecchi,
who had been living in France for many years, could return to
Italy to serve his 10-year prison sentence.
In the ruling seen by Agence France Presse, the French judges
considered, among other things, that handing Vecchi over to
Italy "would represent a disproportionate outrage against
respect for his private and family life".
Militant anti-globalists rioted for days in the Ligurian capital
and a protester, Carlo Giuliani, was shot dead by a Carabiniere
he was attacking with a fire extinguisher a day before a
night-time raid on a school used by protesters which earned
Italy a
condemnation for torture from a European court and which Amnesty
International called the worst suspension of democracy in
western Europe since WWII.
Several police were punished for the police brutality at the
July 2001 summit in the northwestern Italian city, which was
marred by mayhem by extremists and, according to
anti-globalists, agents provocateurs.
But some of the officers in charge escaped punishment and were
promoted.
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