G8 Attack Plot: Police Arrested Suspects In Raids

Italian police arrested six people Thursday in raids on a group of suspected radical leftists who were allegedly planning a terror attack, authorities said.

Italian police have thwarted a suspected plot to attack the G8 summit which world leaders including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown are due to attend.

Six people were arrested and accused of criminal association for the purposes of terrorism and arms possession, anti-terrorist police chief Lamberto Giannini said.

Officers reportedly seized weapons including a bomb during the raids in Rome, Milan and Genoa.

The suspects had maps of the summit's closed-circuit surveillance system and "were trying to figure out how to bypass the security systems," Mr Giannini said.

The investigation into the alleged plot started two years ago when the summit was scheduled to be held on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena.

Italy's Prime Minister changed the venue to L'Aquila following the earthquake which claimed 295 lives there in April.

Silvio Berlusconi said he made the decision to "show solidarity" with the victims during the G8 meeting on July 8-10.


He argued that millions of euros could be saved by moving the summit to a more modest location and said anti-globalisation campaigners would be less likely to stage protests in a disaster zone.

The suspected plotters shifted their attention to target the new venue, according to Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Stampa.

They were trying to "reconstitute a formation similar to the Red Brigades", a terrorist group who carried out attacks in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Mr Giannini said.

Among those arrested were Luigi Fallico, a former member of the Red Brigades, and Gianfranco Zoia, who was arrested in the 1990s for membership of an armed gang.

The Interior Ministry said the group was preparing an attack in La Maddalena, an island off Sardinia that had originally been selected to host the Group of Eight summit next month.

The summit has been moved to L’Aquila in central Italy to draw attention to the region and boost its economy after it was struck by a devastating earthquake in April.

Police officials said the plans for the terror attack had been in their infancy, with the suspects studying how they could get around security in La Maddalena.

Five people were taken to jail and one was placed under house arrest in the anti-terror operation that included raids in Rome, Milan and Genoa.

One of the suspects had been close to the Red Brigades, the leftist group that plagued Italy with attacks in the 1970s and 1980s, and was allegedly working to recreate the militant organization.

“The operation is of exceptional importance because it stopped the reorganization of armed violence in Italy,” Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said.