Cospito gets 23 years for Carabinieri academy bombing

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 26 - The Turin Court of Assizes of Appeal on Monday recalculated the sentence for jailed anarchist leader Alfredo Cospito to 23 years in prison for bombing a Carabinieri school in the Piedmontese city of Fossano on June 2, 2006.
    The public prosecutor's office had asked for life imprisonment.
    For Anna Beniamino, an accomplice, the judges set 17 years and 9 months imprisonment.
    Cospito earlier told the court that there was no evidence against him or his group.
    On June 19 the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office requested a sentence of life imprisonment for Cospito in relation to the bombing of the Carabinieri cadet school.
    The prosecution made its request during a second appeal trial against Cospito, a member of the Informal Anarchist Federation - International Revolutionary Front, to review the sentence for the bombing, until now set at 20 years.
    Cospito attended the trial by video linkup from Sassari jail, where he is serving a combined 30-year sentence under Italy's tough 41 bis prison regime for the Fossano bombing, in which two Carabinieri were injured, and kneecapping a nuclear company executive in 2012, for which he was given 10 years.
    In April 55-year-old Cospito suspended a hunger strike he began on October 20 in protest against his prison regime, which is normally reserved for Mafia bosses, after the Constitutional Court paved the way for his sentence not to be commuted into a life term for the attack on the Carabinieri cadet school.
    His appeals to be released from 41 bis, which mandates almost complete isolation from the outside world, have been turned down by Justice Minister Carlo Nordio as well as the courts.
    His battle against the regime not only for himself but for all other prisoners being held under it, including mafiosi, spurred anarchists in Italy and abroad to stage violent protests and arson attacks in his support. (ANSA).