Declaration at the trial

Declaration at the trial (October 30 2013) for the wounding of Ansaldo Nucleare managing director Roberto Adinolfi

‘Nobody can judge me

Not even you

The truth hurts you, I know.’

C. Caselli

A few words to make a few simple points before the ‘truth’ is pronounced by the court; just in case it’s not clear, I am using the word ‘truth’ ironically as I don’t recognize any tribunal other than my own conscience. The only ones responsible for what happened in Genoa on May 7 2012 are Alfredo and myself. None of our friends or comrades knew what we were planning and then carried out. No matter how far you dig into our lives and relations to find accomplices of the ‘crime’ you won’t be able to demonstrate anything to the contrary; of course you’ll try but it’ll be a lie and an attempt to incriminate some enemy of the existent. I understand that those who have dedicated all their lives to serving authority won’t find it easy to accept the idea that two individuals, armed only with their determination, could decide to try to jam the gears of the techno-industrial system instead of contributing to running it in a disciplined way; but that’s just how it is. After years spent witnessing the systematic destruction of nature and all the aspects that make life worth living carried out by the never too highly praised technological development. Years spent following with interest, but always as a spectator, the experiences of the rebels who, even in this seemingly pacified world, continue to raise their heads and affirm the possibility of a free and wild life. Following the Fukushima disaster, when Alfredo proposed that I help him carry out an action against Roberto Adinolfi, I accepted without thinking twice. At last I could concretely demonstrate my refusal of the techno-industrial system, and put an end to participating in symbolic protests that far too often are just demonstrations of powerlessness. Nobody with even the slightest intelligence can deceive themselves that the result of a referendum or the clowning of some green economy guru can erase even just the most harmful aspects of the world we are forced to live in. Anyone who wants to can see that Finmeccanica and its subsidiary [Ansaldo Nucleare, TN] continue to produce weapons of mass destruction; they simply do this beyond the Italian borders, as if radiation respected these vile barriers.

In Romania (Cernadova, unfortunate area known mainly for countless incidents at its nuclear plant), Slovakia and the Ukraine, to mention just the most recent and direct investments, Ansaldo Nucleare continues to spread death and to contribute to the destruction of nature. As should be obvious to everybody, with another 190 nuclear power stations in Europe alone, the problem is not wondering if another Chernobyl might occur but when it will. And moreover, we mustn’t forget that these monstrosities don’t just kill when they are functioning but also do so with their nuclear waste. This is transported back and forward all over Europe with nobody knowing what to do with it. The nuclear waste from the Italian power stations, closed down decades ago, is now being transported to France in order to be made ‘safe’: they get fuel from it to supply more nuclear reactors, and also a few kilos of plutonium that can only be used to make bombs (just to remind us that there’s no difference between military and civil use as far as nuclear power is concerned), then the waste is sent back as dangerous as it was before. On this question, who knows what the Americans will do with the uranium that was secretly transferred to the USA in the summer from a nuclear waste site in Basilicata. I could talk about the damage and destruction caused by nuclear power for hours, give countless examples, go over what’s going on in Fukushima (where some are saying that no deaths were caused by the nuclear power station…) but I’m not here to seek justification. Perhaps nuclear power is the one element of this civilized world where the senseless monstrosity of the techno-industrial system can be understood by anybody, but we have to realize that we are sacrificing all protection of our individual freedom and the chance to live a worthwhile life on the altar of technological development. Now it is up to each one of us to decide whether we want to be obedient subjects or whether we want to try to live, here and now, the refusal of the existent. I have made up my mind, with joy and with no remorse.

We’ll get out of here branded as terrorists, the amusing thing is that you can say that without seeming ridiculous: it is what the law states. One thing sure is that words have lost all their meaning; if we are terrorists, what would you call those who produce weapons, tracking systems for missiles, drones, fighter-bombers, equipment to hunt people trying to cross borders, nuclear power stations, those who do deals with assassins in uniform and famous dictators, in other words, how would you define Finmeccanica? Well, your bosses certainly don’t have mush imagination, so much so that in order to dispel any doubts about the real function of this company they recently appointed former policeman Gianni De Gennaro company director: given his responsibility for the torture at Bolzaneto and the massacre at the Diaz when he was police chief at the time of the G8 of 2001, they naturally thought that he was the right man in the right place.

To get back to the reasons for this declaration of mine I’d like to make a few points about the ‘brilliant’ operation that led to our arrest. Who knows how many handshakes and pats on the back for the cunning hounds that managed to exploit our one, but fatal, mistake due to inexperience and the urgency to do something after the Fukushima disaster. In fact we didn’t notice a cctv camera placed by a zealous bar owner in order to protect his sandwiches. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t see it when we were studying the route from the spot where we left the moped and the bus stop where we changed buses and reached the city suburbs in the direction of Arenzano where my car, that we used to go to Genoa and come back, was parked. To tell the truth, the camera was not our only mistake, we also lost precious moments when we were leaving the place of the action, as the angry shout of the apprentice sorcerer of nuclear power: ‘Bastards, I know who sent you!’ froze us. It’s not up to me to jump to conclusions about the meaning of that sentence, it wasn’t the right moment for calm thinking, nor am I in the habit of building castles in the air out of someone else’s words, but personally I drew the conclusion that we had put our hands on a pile of shit. Everything else used to justify our detention is either distorted or simply false. The famous piece of phone tapping about the ‘big pistol’, where I allegedly stated I fired the shot, is totally unintelligible; there’s no point in getting experts involved to dismantle it, but as I was driving the moped it would have been impossible for me to also be holding the pistol, just as it seems logically absurd to me that I would be saying this to precisely the person who had taken part in the action with me, i.e. Alfredo.

As for the printer that was seized from my parents’ house, which the forensic stated was the one used to print the leaflet, it’s not even worth talking about. I bought the computer and printer and we destroyed them both after using them (it should be noted that after the court of review reconfirmed our arrest, even the scientists of the RIS realized that the seized printer was not the one used for the leaflet). As far as the theft of the moped is concerned, which we are accused of along with non-existent ‘unknown persons’, things are not as complicated as your efforts to recreate them. We went around the city trying to solve the problem as we had no experience of this kind of thing. As we know, good luck favours the brave, and in the pleasant locality of Bolzaneto we bumped into a scooter with the keys still in the ignition; we took them and decided to go back a few days later with a helmet. The bike was still in the same place, I just got on it, started the engine and drove it to the vicinity of the Staglieno cemetery, where it remained parked until fifteen days before the action, when I moved it near to Mr Adinolfi’s house. I apologize to the owner for removing the helmets and other objects that were under the seat and for throwing away the back trunk, these objects would have been obstacles to the action and certainly it wouldn’t have been a good idea to have tried to get them back. Another element that the investigators have embellished and, I’m afraid, will try to use in their role as good inquisitors in the future, is some phone tapping by the C.S.L. in Naples, where some comrades allegedly comment on the leaflet they allegedly got via e-mail as a world first. I don’t know what they are talking about, I won’t go into how difficult it is to understand the dialogue, to say the least, nor is there any point in dwelling on the obvious consonance between ‘Valentino’ and ‘volantino’ [‘leaflet’ in Italian], but I do know for sure that the communiqué was only sent via ordinary mail (we posted the letters during the change of buses on our way back, in a post box on the seafront near the ferry terminal), so it is impossible for the comrades to have received it via e-mail.

I know for sure that you will use our case to make an example, that your revenge will be draconian, that you will do anything to keep us isolated (suffice it to say that our letters have been subjected to censorship for more than a year), but I want to give you some bad news: your efforts will be in vain. For at least 150 years judges, even more ferocious than yourselves, have been trying to erase the idea of the possibility of a life free from authority, but with poor results. I can calmly assure you that your repressive actions, no matter how wide and indiscriminate, won’t be able to disarticulate or eradicate anything.

If you think that, thanks to us, you will be able to trace other anarchists who have decided to put the chaotic, spontaneous and informal possibilities of the FAI to the test, you are absolutely mistaken and you will draw a blank, like always; neither Alfredo or myself know anyone who has made this choice. You are chasing a ghost that you can’t lock up in the petty procedures of your legal codes. That is because it manifests itself in the instant in which the destructive tensions of those who animate it come together in order to act, in the instant when free women and men decide to put anarchy concretely to the test. Now that the experience of the Olga nucleus is concluded I can only assure you that I have found new reasons to feed my hatred and motives to desire the destruction of the existent composed of authority, exploitation and the devastation of nature.

Love and complicity to the sisters and brothers who make the mad dream of the FAI/FRI real with their actions all over the world. Love and complicity to the comrades who, anonymously or not, continue to attack in the name of the possibility of a life free from authority. Love and freedom to all anarchist prisoners.

Long live the black international of the rebels against the deadly order of civilization. Long live anarchy!

Nicola Gai
Ferrara, September 2013