>>>ANSA/Court rules Cospito must stay in 41 bis jail regime

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 27 - A Milan court on Monday rejected a petition by hunger-striking jailed anarchist Alfredo Cospito for him to be released from the tough 41 bis prison regime he is being held under.
    As a result Cospito, who is in poor health after being on hunger strike since October, will remain under the 41 bis regime in a protected ward of Milan's San Paolo hospital.
    His lawyers said he suffered transient cardiac arrest last week.
    The court refused to commute Cospito's term to house arrest or permanent custody in hospital, saying his conduct was "manipulative".
    It is the latest in a series of unsuccessful legal petitions against the 41 bis made by Cospito.
    Indeed, a court in the Sardinian city of Sassari on Monday rejected a separate appeal for him to be put under house arrest.
    The 41 bis is usually reserved for mafia convicts.
    The 55-year-old is campaigning for it to be abolished for all inmates.
    "The outcome was never in doubt," said Flavio Rossi Albertini, Cospito's defence lawyer, after Monday's rulings.
    "We had no confidence in this initiative being successful.
    "It was an obligatory step to be able to appeal at the international level.
    "The Cospito case is exemplary in many ways of our country's level of judicial development.
    "Who knows what Voltaire would say about it if he were still alive".
    Cospito is being held in relation to separate convictions for a bomb attack on a Carabinieri police training academy in Piedmont in 2006 and for a kneecapping attack in 2012.
    His supporters have embarked on a wave of threats, acts of vandalism and violent protests, including rioting in Turin in early March.
    Justice Undersecretary Andrea Delmastro delle Vedove expressed satisfaction at the Milan court's decision.
    "The game is over," Delmastro delle Vedove said.
    "Within a framework of full legitimacy, the State reaffirmed that it is not possible to bow to manipulative conduct seeking to revoke the 41 bis of dozens and dozens of mafia bosses.
    "We were right all along to defend law and order and the tough prison regime against the manipulative attacks of the anarchic world, which would have only ended up helping organized crime".
    (ANSA).