Six Arrested In Plot To Attack G8 Summit Facilities
June 11, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Six Italians were arrested Thursday on suspicion of plotting to attack Group of Eight summit facilities.
The Rome-based group was trying to revive the Red Brigades terrorist organization that plagued Italy in the 1970s and ’80s, officials said.
Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni congratulated Italian Police Chief Antonio Manganelli, saying: ”The operation conducted by security police this morning is of exceptional importance because the reorganisation of armed struggle in Italy has been prevented”. The group had plotted to attack the original venue of next month’s G8 summit, a former US Navy base on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena, police said. The venue was recently moved to the Abruzzo capital L’Aquila to help it recover from a devastating earthquake in April.
The six, including two men from Genoa, one from Milan, a Sardinian pro-independence militant and an old-guard Red Brigades terrorist, have been taken into custody on terrorism charges.
Five have been taken to prison and one, reportedly found with a bomb, was placed under house arrest because of his age.
The arrests were the result of a two-year probe using wiretaps and other surveillance techniques, police said.
As well as the G8 plot, the six were planning a string of other attacks, police said.
