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Wanneer: 28/03/2023 - 17:18

Alfredo Cospito’s statement at the review hearing for the Operation Sibilla pre-trial measures

Alfredo Cospito’s statement at the review hearing for the Operation Sibilla pre-trial measures

First, I wanted to begin with a quote from my instigator:

“Our system has introduced that figure of mortuary isolation that is 41 bis, and that in some respects is more uncivilized even than this pharmacological mutilation. This is to say that our system does not shine with civilization.”
Carlo Nordio, March 28, 2019

This was my instigator of the struggle I started. I never thought I would get this far, I always found melodrama ridiculous, I love comedy more, but that’s how it was. After all, are we or are we not the country of melodrama? And so I have to end on a high note. When I think about it, though, something ironic is there: I am the only asshole who dies in the progressive democratic West because he is prevented from reading and studying what he wants, anarchist newspapers, anarchist books, historical and scientific journals, without neglecting his beloved comic books.

You will admit that this is paradoxical and even a bit funny, I can’t live this way, I just can’t do it, I hope those who love me will understand. I can’t do it to surrender to this non-life, it is stronger than me, maybe because I am an anarchic Abruzzese stubborn. I am certainly not a martyr, martyrs make me somewhat repulsed. Yes, I am a terrorist, I shot a man and proudly claimed that deed even though, let me tell you, the definition makes a bit of a laugh in the mouth of representatives of states that have wars and millions of dead on their conscience and sometimes, like one of our ministers, get rich from the arms trade. But what can we do, that’s the way of the world, at least until anarchy triumphs and true socialism, the antiauthoritarian and antistatalist kind, finally sees the light of day. Tough luck you will say, and so will I, for now the only glimmers of light I see are the acts of rebellion by my revolutionary brothers and sisters around the world, and they are certainly no small thing, because they are done with heart, passion and courage, no matter how scattered and scrappy they may seem.

Having said that, I wanted to explain the point of my doggedness against the 41 bis regime. A few jurists I think have understood it, but very few have understood: 41 bis is a metastasis that threatens and in fact is undermining your so-called rule of law, a cancer that in a slightly more totalitarian democracy-and with Meloni’s government we are almost there-it can be used to repress, to silence with terror any political dissidence, any sort of hypothetical extremism. The court that decides the sentence to the medieval muzzle of 41 bis is quite similar to the special fascist one, the dynamics are the same: I will only be able to get out of this circle of Hell if I deny my political beliefs, my anarchism, only if I sell me some comrade. It always starts with the gypsies, the communists, the antagonists, thugs, subversives, and then the more or less revolutionary left.

How could I not oppose all this, certainly in a desperate way, and for an anarchist, precisely because we have no organization, the given word is everything, that’s why I will go on until the end. To conclude, as the anarchist Henry said if I remember correctly before they cut off his head: when the show does not please me I may well have the right to leave it, by walking out and slamming the door noisily. This I will do in the coming days, hopefully with dignity and serenity as much as possible.

A big hug to Domenico, who at the 41 bis in Sassari has begun his hunger strike with the hope of being able to re-embrace his children and loved ones, in my strong hope that others damned to 41 bis will break the resignation and join the struggle against this regime that makes the constitution and the so-called – for what it’s worth – rule of law waste paper.

Abolition of the 41 bis regime.
Abolition of hostile life imprisonment.
Solidarity with all anarchist, communist and revolutionary prisoners around the world.

Thank you brothers and sisters for all you have done, I love you and forgive this illogical stubbornness of mine. Never bending, always for anarchy.

Long live life, down with death.

Alfredo Cospito
[In videoconference from Opera prison, March 14, 2023]

Note: The comrade, in quoting current Justice Minister Nordio, refers to the article “Chemical Castration, Return to the Middle Ages,” published in “Il Messaggero,” March 28, 2019 (currently available at these links: https://www.ilmessaggero.it/editoriali/carlo_nordio/editoriali_carlo_nor... & https://web.archive.org/web/20230323152621/https://www.ilmessaggero.it/e...). In addition, the reference to the minister getting rich from arms trafficking certainly concerns the current defense minister Crosetto, who was president of a major arms industry lobby at the time of his appointment. Finally, Alfredo quotes from memory Comrade Émile Henry (1872-1894), whose exact words are as follows: “Moreover, I have well and truly the right to walk out of the theater when the play becomes obnoxious to me, and even to slam the door on my way out, even at the risk of disturbing the tranquility of those who are pleased with it” (Italian translation in Émile Henry, Strike on Strike, Edizioni Anarchismo, Trieste, 2013, p. 141; also currently available at this link: https://www.edizionianarchismo.net/library/emile-henry-colpo-su-colpo).