Italy Rejects Convicts’ Demand as Hostage Standoff Enters 4th Day

Six convicted killers held 21 prison staff members hostage on the Italian island of Elba for a fourth day Friday with negotiators refusing the convicts’ demands for a helicopter to fly them to freedom.

“We are waiting for a sign of good will from the convicts,” magistrate Antonino Costanzo told reporters on the island that once served as Napoleon’s exile home. “We are doing all we can to avoid a massacre.”

He said the prisoners, who began Italy’s first prison revolt in five years on Tuesday, could not have a helicopter “for technical reasons.” He did not elaborate.

Negotiators had previously insisted that the only woman among the hostages be freed before talks could start on the helicopter. She is Rossella Giazzi, 29, a social worker who was on a routine visit to the prison when the siege started.

Nine inmates are also trapped in a fourth-floor infirmary that was taken over by the six rebellious convicts.

The convicts, led by right-wing extremist Mario Tuti, are armed with guns, knives and explosives and have regularly soaked their captives in gasoline and threatened to set them on fire.

They are barricaded in the infirmary and have threatened a blood bath if police try to end the siege by force.

Costanzo said Tuti, a neo-fascist, had not spoken to negotiators for more than 24 hours, although telephone contacts were continuing with other members of the gang.

He said the 21 hostages, who include the prison warden, appeared to be in fairly good physical condition, but added: “As for their morale, I can’t say.”