We are speaking out to say a number of things about our case, few but clear.
We were arrested here in Bergamo on February 2 during an attempted robbery in a jeweller's shop in the town centre. Taken to police headquarters we were immediately charged with robbery and, a few hours later, when they finally discovered our names, they informed us that due to our being anarchists they intended to 'fit us up' by charging us with other robberies and a murder.
While we were held by the police we were also given the usual treatment of being beaten up for a number of hours, but we do not want to insist on this 'torture' here as we have no intention of adopting a victimistic position.
We declared that we had attempted the robbery exclusively for personal reasons, in a word because we did not have jobs and needed the money.
Finally we stated that we are anarchists and revolutionaries.
Carrying on with the frame up that they had announced right from the start, two Bergamo judges are now accusing us of a robbery with murder that took place in that town on April 7 1987, and another robbery, still in Bergamo, on March 9 1985; and things might even not stop there. Needless to say we have nothing to do with these other robberies or the murder.
These new and quite unfounded accusations that have been made against us as forecast by the head of the Bergamo flying squad are intended to strike us because we are anarchists.
At this point it seems obvious that the intention of the police and judiciary is to strike all our revolutionary work and our involvement in the social struggle over the past years.
We have seen that a divergence of opinions has developed in the anarchist movement concerning this case, when not simply a convenient silence. We obviously maintain the thesis of those who say that when anarchists 'need money they go and take it', and in fact that is what we tried to do. But now it seems to us that, as was foreseeable, the problem has moved away from that aspect.
Now things are clear: we are now accused of offences that carry life sentences, because we are anarchists. They want to make us pay for our anarchist activity, accusing us of things we have nothing to do with.
We are not afraid. We are proud to confirm our anarchist militancy loud and clear both before the state and in the face of all those who in the name of a misplaced respectability want to have us buried.
Alfredo M. Bonanno
Pippo Stasi
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