The hearing held on November 23 finished much earlier than expected. The judge was very disappointed that the public prosecutor failed to bring his final witnesses to court, so he postponed the hearing to January 18. A request for permission to work presented by Salvatore’s lawyer was rejected. The comrade, however, read a declaration, which was also signed by some other co-defendants.

Declaration made by the Lecce anarchists in court

We have decided to make a short declaration to clarify a few questions and to refute the lies that priest Cesare Lodeserto told in this court at the last hearing. First of all, we want to give words back their real meaning, which carries a precise content ; but where there is the intent to conceal reality, the first step is to call it by different names and twist it until it loses any relationship with the truth. This is a very common practice these days, where neo-language is largely employed, making wars become ‘peace missions’ or ‘humanitarian operations’ and detention centres for immigrants ‘welcome centres’. Similarly, father Cesare calls the prisoners in the Regina Pacis camp ‘guests’ and talks about a system of ‘passive surveillance’ . It is rather strange that these ‘guests’ were watched by a system of video-surveillance, that ‘police had to intervene in the camp’ (to quote Lodeserto), ‘arrests were carried out in the structure’ and ‘the people in the camp were registered according to the regulations normally in use in such structures’. In fact the immigrants were registered and listed like goods. Prisoners are also registered, and deportees in Nazi concentration camps were listed and registered too. To move on, both father Cesare and the inquisitors claimed that the revolts in the Regina Pacis camp broke out when anarchists demonstrated outside that hideous place. We are not interested in hearing that we are capable of such ; on the contrary, as anarchists we try to find any instrument that is useful to intervene in a reality that we find intolerable. The point is quite different and also, let’s say, banal : revolts break out spontaneously where dignity is crushed and life is offended. This simple truth is widely demonstrated by the story of totalitarian institutions in general and the Regina Pacis camp in particular, as proved by a very long list of episodes. It is therefore the self-determination of individuals and not anarchists’ ability that brings about all individual and collective revolts. Finally, we want to clarify what father Cesare claimed, referring to an event that occurred on August 10 2004, following which a Rumanian in his late twenties, Vasile Costantin, has remained totally paralysed. We will not discuss whether what this man stated is true (that he was beaten up by the cops while lying on the ground after falling from the fence ; we know such gentle police practices all too well), we only want to make it clear that never ever has father Cesare or anyone else working in the Regina Pacis camp ‘helped this man in any possible way’, as the latter declared. On the contrary, the young Rumanian was totally abandoned by the operators of the camp who simply informed his wife in Rumania that he was dying, without further getting in touch with her. Vasile, known as Vali, was visited in the hospital in Lecce by a few comrades who warmed him with love and affection, according to authentic solidarity, which is extraneous to economic and personal interests. These comrades and other sensitive people managed to get Vali into a specialised clinic for spinal rehabilitation in Imola where he stayed for a few months, without unfortunately recovering much. The same people continue to support Vali now that he is back in Rumania. We are not saying that because we want to be considered as charitable people or because we want to be honoured with medals that we despise, but because we want to establish the truth and tear away father Cesare’s veil of lies. The latter paid one and only one visit to Vali in hospital after he learned that others had already been, as he wanted to know who these people were. Rudolf Hoss, a commander in Auschwitz concentration camp, wrote in his memories while detained in prison in Poland awaiting execution : ‘I never became insensitive to human suffering : I have always seen it and suffered for it. I had to crush it because I was not allowed to be soft’. He also boasted that he had never personally beaten up any prisoner in the camp. Father Cesare, on the contrary, cannot even say that. That’s all.