The ex-Italian anarchist and anti-capitalist-militant is claimed by Italy, who sentenced him to twelve and a half in prison for violence committed during anti-G8 demonstrations in Genoa in 2001.
MO12345LEMONDE With AFP
New episode in the judicial soap operated by France to Italy concerning an Italian activist who took refuge in France and sentenced in her country to a heavy prison sentence, for violence at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001. The Court of Cassation canceled, Tuesday, November 29, the decision refusing the extradition to Italy of Vincenzo Vecchi and returned the case before a new court of appeal.
In November 2020, the Angers Court of Appeal, like that of Rennes before it, had refused to execute the European arrest warrant issued by Rome, on the grounds that the main sentence to which Vincenzo Vecchi was Condemned, ten years in prison for “devastation and looting”, had no equivalent in France.
Since the arrest in Brittany of the anti -capitalist activist in August 2019, this offense concentrates the criticisms of his defense and his supporters. Introduced into the Italian penal code under Mussolini, it makes it possible to repress from eight to fifteen years of imprisonment for “complicity” the participation in a major disorder in public order by a simple “moral competition”.
Double incrimination condition
The Court of Cassation, seized of an appeal of the Attorney General of Angers after the refusal to present Vincenzo Vecchi to the Italian authorities, had requested the interpretation of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the Double incrimination condition. In its decision rendered in July, the CJEU estimated that it was not required “perfect correspondence” between the offenses in the Member State of the issue of the arrest warrant and in that of execution, and that the France could therefore not oppose the delivery of Vincenzo Vecchi to Italy.
“The interpretation of the CJEU of a rule resulting from European Union law is imposed on the courts of the member states of the EU”, recalls the Court of Cassation in a press release. Consequently, the highest court of the French judicial order broke the decision of the Angers Court of Appeal and returned the investigation of the case before the Lyon Court of Appeal.
The Rennes Court of Appeal had ordered, in mid-November 2019, the release of the alter-globalization activist claimed by the Italian authorities. She had noted “the irregularity” of the European arrest warrant concerning her conviction for the facts of the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001. A decision canceled by the Court of Cassation.
Vincenzo Vecchi had been arrested under two European arrest warrants: one for the events of Genoa, the other for a conviction following a demonstration in Milan against the extreme right in 2006.