A high five for Italy
(Via Wog Blog) Reuters reports No charges in Italy's G8 riot death - prosecutor

Italian prosecutors investigating the killing of an anti-capitalist protester at last year's G8 Genoa summit, said on Monday the policeman who fired the fatal bullet had acted in self-defence and should not be charged.

Officer Mario Placanica shot dead 23-year-old Carlo Giuliani as the demonstrator tried to throw a fire extinguisher into a police jeep on July 20, the first day of the 2001 summit of leaders from the world's industrialised powers.

''The policeman couldn't have acted differently because the aggression was violent and virulent. Placanica was justified in thinking his life was in danger,'' prosecutor Silvio Franz said in a 36-page report.
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During the three-day meeting hundreds of demonstrators were injured, some seriously, in pitched street battles with police who used tear gas and water cannon to keep them away from the main G8 venue. About 300 people were arrested.

The rioting left the northern port city looking like a war zone, with burnt out cars littering the streets.
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Carlo was one of a 30-strong group which attacked a Carabinieri paramilitary police van with stones and iron bars.

Placanica, a trainee policeman at the time of the riot-ridden summit, fired two shots and was placed under investigation for manslaughter. But wrapping up a 16-month probe, prosecutors said they saw no reason to press charges.

You get what you ask for.

But it won't satisfy the whiners who think leftist protestors have some special immunity for their thuggish behavior.

Lawyers for the Giuliani family said they would urge the presiding judge not to accept the prosecutor's recommendation, while the victim's father denounced the report as ''a joke.''

''I don't want revenge, just the truth. Neither a 30-year sentence nor a 30-minute sentence is going to bring Carlo back,'' Giuliano Giuliani told reporters.

Here's a clue, Guiliano. Your punk son was part of a violent mob and tried to kill a policeman. He got shot. No too bright was he?

And more.

After the summit, Italian security forces were heavily criticised for their handling of the violence, with some opposition politicians asking why an inexperienced, 21-year-old officer had ended up trapped in the middle of a riot.

Maybe because the good guys were outnumbered by the thugs? What would would an experienced officer have done? Let the thug hit him?