Military prosecutor probes rogue Carabinieri

(ANSA) - VERONA, 23 LUG - A Verona military prosecutor said Thursday he had opened an investigation into a group of allegedly rogue Carabinieri accused of drug pushing, extortion and torture in Piacenza.
    The prosecutor, Stanislao Saeli, said that there appeared to be evidence of military crimes in the charges laid by Piacenza prosecutors Wednesday.
    The Carabinieri are a paramilitary police corps and as such are under the ultimate command of the defence ministry.
    The six Carabinieri were arrested Wednesday and a barracks belonging to the paramilitary police impounded in the northern city of Piacenza.
    "Nothing that went on that barracks was legal, they were out-and-out criminals," said Piacenza Chief Prosecutor Grazia Pradella about the Carabinieri involved.
    "We are confronted by shocking crimes, especially if you think they were committed by police officers," she said. The men have been charged with trafficking and distributing narcotics, receiving stolen goods, extortion, illegal arrest, torture, grievous bodily harm, embezzlement, abuse of office and fraud.
    Pradella said the most serious of the alleged crimes had been commited during the coronavirus lockdown from early March to early June.
    She said that "while the city of Piacenza was counting its many dead from the coronavirus, these Carabinieri were supplying drugs to pushers who had run out and were confined to their homes because of the anti-COVID norms".
    Defence Minister Lorenzo Guerini, who is the ultimate commander of the Carabinieri corps, said "these are unheard of crimes, but they must not be allowed to tarnish the Carabinieri's reputation as a whole". He said the corps was "made up of 110,000 men and women who work daily with an extremely high sense of the institutions, on the side of citizens".
    According to an intercept, the incriminated officers said "we have formed a criminal gang boys...in other words, we've made a pyramid...we are untouchable". They allegedly said "we have found another person, under us. This person here goes to all these pushers and tells them: 'Watch it, from now on, if you want to sell the stuff, you sell this stuff, otherwise you don't work!', and we'll give them the stuff!".
    In another intercept, a civilian under investigation said the way one of the Carabinieri had commandeered a car "reminds me of a scene out of Gomorra". Piacenza prosecutors said the Carabinieri had behaved like "fully fledged, hardened criminals". (ANSA).