The dictionary of the Italian language defines “escort” as “the action of accompanying for the purpose of guidance, surveillance or protection”. In Italy, according to a survey carried out a few years ago by Corriere della Sera, there are over two thousand law enforcement operators employed in the escort activity, with a total expenditure which, according to the police unions, exceeds 250 million euros per year. The law assigns the Ministry of the Interior the power to adopt measures «for the protection and protection of people exposed to particular risk situations of a terrorist nature or related to organized crimeto the trafficking of narcotic substances, weapons or parts thereof, including nuclear ones, radioactive material and aggressive chemical or biological agents or related to intelligence of foreign individuals or organizations”.
In 2002, following the murder of Marco Biagi (who was denied an escort despite his repeated requests), it was established within the ministry, with a law decree of May 2002, then converted into law 2 July 2002, n. 133, the Central Joint Office for Personal Security (UCIS), a centralized structure that has the task of dealing with the assignment and management of escorts. There are different levels of protection, based on the risk and threats to which the protected personality is exposed. Alongside dynamic surveillance, with periodic visits to the places subject to surveillance, to fixed supervision at the home or workplace, there are real protection activities which range from the presence of an agent who travels in the same car as person at risk, up to the mobile escort which provides, depending on the case, the presence of one to three armored cars in tow, with up to a total of nine escort officers. Countless controversies over the excessive use of stocks have appeared in newspapers in recent years, many of which have stigmatized the tendency to consider them as a real status symbol (according to the expression used a few years ago by the general secretary of one of the main police unions) paid by the taxpayer “to the detriment of services essential to maintaining collective security”. In other cases, the center of attention was the use of agents to support, rather than protect, the daily life of the escorted person (we are a country of solidarity, especially towards the powerful), such as accompanying children to school, doing the shopping, going to the cinema etc.
As always at the forefront, in Turin, a further important function of the escort has been tested over the years, that of a driving force for the oversizing, in terms of public order, of phenomena linked to social conflict. Thus, over twenty years ago, in the trial against Sole, Baleno and Pelissero, all the magistrates who held some judicial function in the trial (with involvement even for just one hearing) were protected by escort, so that they would not forget how dangerous anarchists disguised as eco-terrorists were to their personal safety (or vice versa). The intent was obviously to calm people’s minds and to allow, through a modification of the normal ways of life and movement of the magistrates concerned, a responsible use of their respective powers, with a view to ever greater impartiality with respect to the facts and the accused to judge… Thus, even in the events linked to the thirty-year No Tav resistance, both the magistrates, judges and investigators, and various political and journalistic personalities, considered bitter enemies of the movement, benefited from personal protection with escort.
The escort has thus become, with an eye also turned to public opinion, a spy of something that transcends it on the level of social representation, in this case the danger of the protest movement, which, through the assignment of the escort, is labeled as potentially capable, through its most radical exponents, of carrying out attacks against people’s safety. A choice, this, which proved to be the right one, if, for example, still in 2021 the director of an important national newspaper like Lto Repubblicaduring a television broadcast, he said «the No Tav, they are a violent organization, what remains of Italian terrorism from the 70s. They systematically attack institutions, the police, even newspapers, they threaten journalists in Turin» (https://volerelaluna.it/in-primo-piano/2021/11/19/no-tav-una-querela-contro-larroganza-del-potere/). However, things don’t always go as planned. One cannot help but remember the famous story of the escort driver Public minister Rinaudo, attacked, according to him, about ten years ago, by a phantom gang of antagonists who, after having beaten and injured with a pocketknife, he shouted at him before walking away: «This is the end of the servants of the servants». In the space of a few days – after a very respectable media campaign on the danger of the terrorist tendencies of the most radical souls of the movement and the sober declarations of the investigating magistrates themselves («There is always a zero hour. A moment when something different happens that changes the course of history») – the man confessed to having made it all up. As the newspaper wrote with prudence and a great sense of responsibility The print, «perhaps the cause [della sua condotta] it could be the stress of this period, the desire – as a former policeman with no gun license – to return to an operational role, alongside highly motivated and responsible colleagues. You can’t forget who the driver was “a family man […] engaged […] in grueling shifts of the escort of Public minister who had faith in him”» (yes!).
But let’s come to the present day. AND appeared a few weeks ago, during the debate on what the newspapers badly defined as the “legalization” of the social center Askatasuna (https://volerelaluna.it/politica/2024/02/02/ce-qualcosa-di-nuovo-sotto-il-sole-askatasuna-e-il-futuro-dei-centri-sociali/), an interview with the President of the Piedmont Region, Alberto Cirio. In the same, Cirio said: «I have been living under guard for years due to the threats I received four years ago. You will remember the flyers with my face instead of that of poor Aldo Moro. It seems they came from environments in the antagonistic area»also receiving the dutiful solidarity of the Mayor of Turin who, in expressing his «total closeness to the President» underlined that «it is intolerable that he goes around under guard».
I have been the defender of Three of the four young people investigated for having posted those flyers, which depicted Cirio in place of Moro, who had just been kidnapped by the Red Brigades, with a writing at the bottom that read “I cosplayer what we want.” For those who are unaware, as happened to the writer until the trial, a cosplayer he is a person who loves to wear the costumes of famous characters, usually from films or comics. Let’s start immediately from the end: for two of the accused, in their early twenties, the crime of aggravated threats, contested for the drafting and posting of the leaflets, was declared extinct following a positive outcome of the probation, the other two, a boy and a girl, were acquitted for not having committed the crime. The trial made it possible to clarify what had happened. In short, the two defendants then admitted to the trial, as can be seen from their agreed statements, had found the photomontage depicting Alberto Cirio on the Internet and had added a writing of their own, the one on the cosplayer, by way of caption. Then one phoned the other, suggesting they go and do “some bullshit outside the house”. After having printed some copies they went to the Vanchiglia district, where, mixing with the nightlife and in the company of the other two defendants, they hung with the Scotch tapein places not far from the Askatasuna social center, Three specimens of the flyer, to the indifference of the other two subjects who had limited themselves to looking at them from a distance of a few meters. The images taken by the security cameras positioned in the neighborhood clearly showed the different phases of the incident and, nevertheless, the police decided to report all four boys, also because the two older ones were rightly considered socially dangerous, even if they had no criminal record, given that they had sometimes been seen frequenting the community center and even taking part in some demonstrations in Val di Susa. In that period, among other things, many Askatasuna militants were under telephone and environmental interception by the Police, who listened to their conversations in which they had had the opportunity to comment on the episode, defining it as a prank to which the social center was extraneous. .
Nonetheless, all the comments that appeared in the newspapers at the time of the discovery valorized the fact that the leaflets had been found near the well-known social center and relaunched the usual litany against the antagonistic movements (it is difficult to imagine inspired by who…), based on the risks back to the years of lead. Among the many, that of Giorgia Meloni, not yet Prime Minister, stands out: «The despicable intimidating flyer found, coincidentally, near the Askatasuna social center demonstrates how the climate of hate violence of the years of lead still lurks today in some environments that go so far as to use murder to threaten institutions. I hope that the investigators promptly shed light on the case and that those responsible are identified and punished because these people are unworthy of Italy and the Italian people.” In the irrevocable sentence that acquitted the other two defendants, it is clearly stated that the posting of the flyers had been conceived by its authors “as a joking joke, a prank”, without realizing the consequences it could have had.
When the news emerged of the indictment of the four accused for the drafting of the flyer, Cirio commented as follows: «Someone perhaps thinks of stopping Piedmont and the Piedmontese with intimidation. But, Aldo Moro taught us, “true freedom is lived with difficulty amidst constant pitfalls”. Now the dangers can be considered over. All that remains is to notify President Cirio and the Joint Central Office for Personal Security, responsible for maintaining the escort.
