6
GIULIANI AND GAGGIO v. ITALY JUDGMENT
order to get away from the scene of the clashes. Crouched down in the back
of the jeep, injured and panicking, he was protecting himself on one side
with a riot shield (according to the statement of a demonstrator named
Predonzani). Shouting at the demonstrators to leave “or he would kill
them”, M.P. drew his Beretta 9 mm pistol, pointed it in the direction of the
smashed rear window of the vehicle and, after some tens of seconds, fired
two shots.
24. One of the shots struck Carlo Giuliani, a balaclava-clad
demonstrator, in the face under the left eye. He had been close to the rear of
the jeep and had just picked an empty fire extinguisher off the ground and
raised it up. He fell to the ground near the left-side rear wheel of the vehicle.
25. Shortly afterwards, F.C. managed to restart the engine and in an
attempt to move off, reversed, driving over Carlo Giuliani's body in the
process. He then engaged first gear and drove over the body a second time
as he left the scene. The jeep then drove towards Piazza Tommaseo.
26. After “a few metres”, carabinieri sergeant-major Amatori got into
the jeep and took over at the wheel, “as the driver was in a state of shock”.
Another carabiniere named Rando also got in.
27. Police forces stationed on the other side of Piazza Alimonda
intervened and dispersed the demonstrators. They were joined by some
carabinieri. At 5.27 p.m. a police officer present at the scene called the
control room to request an ambulance. A doctor who arrived at the scene
subsequently pronounced Carlo Giuliani dead.
28. According to the Ministry of the Interior (ministero dell'Interno), it
was impossible to indicate the exact number of carabinieri and police
officers at the scene at the moment of Carlo Giuliani's death; there had been
approximately fifty carabinieri, some 150 metres from the jeep. In addition,
200 metres away, near Piazza Tommaseo, there had been a group of police
officers.
29. Relying, inter alia, on witness evidence given by law-enforcement
officers during a parallel set of proceedings (the “trial of the twenty-five”,
see paragraphs 121-138 below), the applicants stated in particular that,
while on Piazza Alimonda, the carabinieri had been able to take off their
gas masks, eat and rest. With the situation “calm”, Captain Cappello had
ordered M.P. and D.R. to board one of the two jeeps. He considered the two
carabinieri to be mentally exhausted (“a terra”) and no longer physically fit
for duty. Cappello also considered that M.P. should stop firing tear gas and
took away his tear-gas gun and the pouch containing the tear-gas grenades.
30. Referring to the photographs taken shortly before the fatal shot, the
applicants stressed that the weapon had been held at a downward angle from
the horizontal. They also referred to the statements made by
Lieutenant-Colonel Truglio (see paragraph 43 below), who said that he had
been ten metres or so from Piazza Alimonda and thirty to forty metres away
from the jeep. The carabinieri (around a hundred of them) had been some