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More than 70 Italian police officers, many of them senior commanders, are about to go on trial accused of orchestrating a campaign of police brutality at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 and then organising a huge cover-up.
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The vast majority of the 100,000 anti-globalisation protesters were peaceful but a small minority were intent on violence.

They clashed repeatedly with police on the streets close to the Red Zone, the fenced-off area where the summit was taking place.

On the Friday a protester, Carlo Giuliani, was shot dead by police and his death ramped up the tension and mutual hatred.

The summit ended on the Saturday afternoon and the clashes died away.

But just before midnight on 21 July 2001 a squad of around 200 masked riot police officers, armed with batons and shields, arrived at a school two miles from the Red Zone.

The Armando Diaz school complex was being used to house dozens of protesters.

Across the street was an alternative media centre being used by Indymedia journalists such as Mark Covell, who was one of five Britons staying at the Diaz.

Mr Covell was beaten unconscious and received several broken ribs, a fractured hand and the loss of all his front teeth.

Other injuries included an American who was kicked so hard in the groin that he will never be able to father children.

Forty of those arrested at the Diaz were taken to a holding centre at Bolzaneto, outside Genoa.

There they were submitted to physical and verbal abuse, including being threatened with rape by officers who were singing fascist-era songs.
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Because police at the Diaz that night were all masked and did not have numbers or names on their uniforms - such identification is not required by law in Italy - it was impossible to attribute acts of violence to individual officers.

Only one, Luigi Fazio, has been charged with assault.

So the prosecutor, Enrico Zucca, has targeted the commanders.

He told BBC News: "We are prosecuting the commanders, those who had the responsibility for the whole action. They are the ones who ordered it and then ordered the cover-up."

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