Italy Deports 20 Arrested During Genoa Summit

A court in Genoa, Italy, on Tuesday ordered the release from prison of three Americans and 17 others arrested in connection with last month’s violence-scarred Group of 8 summit.

Most of those freed were part of an Austrian theater group, Publix Theater, that was accused of conspiring with anarchists known as the Black Bloc, said to be responsible for much of the violence before and during the July 20-22 summit.

Politicians in both the United States and Austria had worked to win the releases. All of those freed were ordered deported, but the charges against them, which carry a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison, were not immediately dropped.

A few, including Susanna Thomas, 21, of Warren, N.J., a member of the pacifist Quaker faith and a senior at Bryn Mawr College, were not part of the theater troupe but were traveling with it.

“She’s been released and is being deported,” Rick Thomas, Susanna’s father, said in a telephone interview Tuesday, shortly after he spoke with one of her lawyers in Italy. “We’re very glad that our daughter has been released.”

Susanna Thomas left Voghera prison, about 40 miles north of Genoa, in a police car shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday.

“There are lots of political prisoners still in jail, and they all need help and support and prayers and solidarity,” she said, clad in a T-shirt that said in German, “Freedom for all political prisoners.”

Thomas was expected to spend the night at the home of one of her lawyers, Gilberto Pagani, according to her Philadelphia-based lawyer, Richard Atkins. Thomas said she expected to spend a few days with friends in Europe before flying back to the United States to see her parents.

Pagani told reporters that the two other Americans being released were Andre Patrick Stoffel of Illinois, born in 1978, and Brian Sating of Ohio, born in 1965. A Swedish woman, a Slovak woman and 15 Austrians, including seven women, were also being freed.

Atkins said the Austrians were deported across the border Tuesday evening and that the other Americans were being held in a deportation center overnight.

Five other people arrested at the same time remained in custody but were also likely to be freed soon, after questioning by a Genoa court Friday, according to another defense lawyer, Andrea Sandra. Charges against the group of 25 included vandalism, endangering public safety and participating in a criminal organization.

Austrian President Thomas Klestil wrote his Italian counterpart, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, last week to urge the “speedy release” of Austrians still in custody. Italian playwright Dario Fo, a Nobel Prize winner, also campaigned for the theater group’s release.

New Jersey’s senators, Democrats Robert Torricelli and Jon Corzine, also got involved by writing to the U.S. charge d’affaires in Rome, William P. Pope, asking him to intercede with Italian authorities.

Several European countries have formally complained to Italian officials about the treatment of protesters arrested during the summit, and Washington has also expressed concern.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker welcomed the release of the three Americans. He avoided any comment on whether the July 22 arrests were justified.

Publix Theater is a street theater group that deals with political themes. Police seized knives, black clothes, cell phones, juggling clubs and flagpoles from their vehicles. The actors told authorities that the items were used only for their street performances.

In clashes between protesters and police during the summit, one demonstrator was shot and killed, more than 200 were injured, and 300 were arrested.

The riots were the most violent since the anti-globalization movement erupted at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. But police have been criticized for allegedly overreacting and engaging in brutality.

Gianni De Gennaro, the head of Italian police, has acknowledged that some units used “excess” force against the 100,000 demonstrators in Genoa; three top Genoa officers have been transferred.

Some of the worst reports of police brutality stemmed from a July 22 nighttime raid on a school where protesters were sleeping. Many were beaten, with 60 reported injured, and 92 were taken to jail.

Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into what happened to some of those detained at the Bolzaneto police garrison. Some detainees have alleged that they were beaten, deprived of sleep, food, water and medical care, and mentally abused. Some women have said they were required to strip for medical examinations by male doctors and that while in their cells they faced sexual insults from guards.

De Gennaro has said he couldn’t rule out “illicit behavior” by police at Bolzaneto.

Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry, and at least 50 of those detained have filed formal complaints against the police.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington and Maria De Cristofaro of The Times’ Rome Bureau contributed to this report.